For real escape through summer reading, there's no substitute for fiction. Here are a few books worth sharing. My top read this past year was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. A 13-year-old boy in Manhattan survives a terrorist bomb in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His mother is killed. They had been visiting her favorite painting, a goldfinch …
Continue reading Books to escape from Benghazi, Boko Haram, Boehner, biz cycle etc, pt. 2
Every summer I offer up some of the books I've read in the past year and happily invite readers' recommendations to me. I'm always on the prowl for a good read. This summer's book review will be in two parts. First, the non-fiction. If you're looking for light summer reading, do not try to read …
Continue reading Books to escape from Benghazi, Boko Haram, Boehner, biz cycle etc, pt. 1
Ann Coulter must have been hit on the head by a soccer ball, and it was no planned header. Her recent column , a screed against the sport and America's growing interest in it, seems unhinged. She asserts that this is a sign of our nation's moral decay, that the only reason we are interested …
Smart People, Lydia Diamond's new play at the Huntington Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, is a smart, funny, profound and highly polished play that I don't hesitate to recommend. Diamond, whose award-winning play Stick Fly played at the Huntington four years ago before going on to Broadway, writes a lot about race and …
I haven't written much about Citizens United and the lethal impact that infamous Supreme Court decision has had on our already tainted political process. Nothing I could have written would have driven the point home as colorfully as this music video by Los Angeles-based music writer, singer and producer Eric Schwartz. Please take a few minutes …
Continue reading Senator Whoever: a candidate for The Daily Show!
A ten-game losing streak. The worst in decades. A string of injuries as long as your sore arm. Still, it's too soon to panic. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. We’re still weeks away from my All Star game marker, when I traditionally worry when the Red Sox record is too good, setting us up …
Don't read this if you're tired of the non-stop coverage of the Marathon bombing. Don't read it if you're not touched in some way by the tragedy that befell individual runners and bystanders or disturbed by the assault on our community. Have there been efforts to capitalize on the grief and memorialization of the event? The profit …
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, indeed, a controversial figure, especially for the vehemence with which she has criticized Islamic fundamentalism. Just read her memoir Infidel, and you'll understand why. Her childhood was spent in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya, where she survived genital mutilation, physical and emotional abuse, parental attempts at forced marriage and all the forms …
Four months ago, when the Oxford English Dictionary named "selfie" the 2013 word of the year, I had never even heard of it. In the last couple of days, it's almost all I've heard. Of course, there was the selfie taken by President Obama of himself and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a comely lass, …
Despite a hailstorm today, little green shoots are starting to poke their heads up in our yard, tomorrow is April 1st and the baseball season has officially started. I'm poised to wrest control of my garden from the rabbits and welcome the season with a clean slate. Except for the Remy factor. When Jerry Remy started broadcasting from spring training, …
