During my tenure at WCVB-TV, Channel 5, I would write an annual Thanksgiving week editorial railing at all the turkeys in our lives. Favorite targets were members of the legislature who......., drivers who........, people in lines at the store who........., teenagers who............, television advertisers who............ The presentation was dramatically enhanced by the station's super-talented Creative …
Author: aronsbarron
Boom and bust. Rinse and repeat?
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History – and How it Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin is a spellbinding deep dive into the irrational exuberance of the Roaring Twenties, the amassing of wealth and wild stock market speculations that eventually blew out the fortunes of Wall St. insiders as well as …
A child survives the Holocaust
Remembering & forgetting: a memoir and other pieces of my life by Miriam Spiegel Raskin is a short but impactful book by a woman who, in 1939, at the age of eight, fled Germany with her parents, Julius and Fannie Spiegel, in the wake of Kristallnacht. Most of the rest of her family did not …
A blue swell, not a wave
A post-election newsletter from a member of Congress proclaimed “Blue Wave.” Other commentators had similar expressions of euphoria. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, the world felt a lot better on Wednesday. Robust turnouts in a variety of races across the country and double-digit margins for Democrats of different ideological stripes were the …
Eminent education writer reverses course
An Education: How I changed My mind about Schools and Almost Everything Else is an eye-opening and deeply personal memoir, intricately wound up with the story of how our nation has been swept up with and jerked around by changing approaches to education. It's not often that a highly visible scholar or public official admits …
Story-teller journalist tells his own story
"Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life" by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is a large but rich memoir of an extraordinary career in journalism. Perhaps you remember Kristof’s coverage of the slaughter in Darfur, the bloody civil war and mass starvation in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) or the massacre in Hama during the …
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Love – and tenancy – in the golden years
Imagine this happening to you. You’re a widow “of a certain age.” After years of being single again, you meet a compatible widower and find love. You date for a long time and seem perfect for each other. You move into his place, and you live together for 11 years. All goes well until, late …
Courage in the face of fascism: the warnings of history
The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück by Lynne Olsen is an extraordinary telling of a little-told Nazi horror story, barely hinted at by the subtitle, “How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp.” This goes beyond any book you’ve read or movie you have seen. The S.S.-run Ravensbruck hard labor camp …
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Specks of beauty amidst dark period in U.S. history
Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins is a mighty book, in length (544 pages) and in the majesty of the natural world that is its backdrop. The writing is often captivatingly poetic and deeply philosophical. Each of the major characters is sui generis and memorable. The sometimes stream-of-consciousness method giving voice to each of their …
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More than Romeo and Juliet: Israel meets Palestine
The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai is a riveting novel about an Israeli-born woman, a Sabra named Tamar, married to a Syrian Jew, Salim, who has migrated to Israel. She has been raised with the noble founding values of Israel as an egalitarian society. His experience, however, is that of a Mizrahi, darker-skinned Jews …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 