Trump world is giving us the "madman theory of foreign policy" and a reign of terror domestically. Around the world, he is fashioning himself as unpredictable and irrational, which comes naturally to him and doesn't have to be "fashioned." Just ask Greenlanders and Panamanians, fearful that he said he'd use force if necessary to take …
Category: Culture
In Trump Week Two, this piece of fiction is a gift
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson is a relatively short, exquisitely written novel (published five years ago) about two Black families, divided by economic status, whose lives become joined when their children conceive a baby. Iris, 16, insists on giving birth to Melody, without any understanding of or commitment to being a mom. Her …
Continue reading In Trump Week Two, this piece of fiction is a gift
A novel embedded in history, enriched by poetry
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is a large book delicately woven by a metaphor: drop of water falls into the river, whose particles are borne to the sky and fall again to the earth as rain, only to repeat itself. The image speaks to continuing cycles of human experience, starting at …
Continue reading A novel embedded in history, enriched by poetry
Historical fiction that expands our minds and feeds our senses
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud is a fictional drama based on the author’s own multi-generational family, covering seven decades of family history and moving from Salonica in Greece, to French (colonial) Algeria to France, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, Australia and the United States. Each chapter is told from the perspective of another family member, …
Continue reading Historical fiction that expands our minds and feeds our senses
Jimmy Carter went out as he came in
It was a scorcher of a day in the summer of 1975, more than a year before the presidential election to determine whether Jerry Ford could withstand public contempt for his decision to pardon Richard Nixon and win a four-year term on his own. Foot traffic in Concord, New Hampshire was subdued under the blazing …
Good news is no news at all
Polls show that two thirds of Americans are mentally exhausted and taking a break from a steady diet of news consumption. Count me among them, at least aspirationally. Since the election, mainstream newspapers, cable and network news have bled readers and viewers, most significantly at CNN and MSNBC. I, too, have simply overdosed on national …
16th C. England: leaders worse than ours today
Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe by historians John Guy and Julia Fox (husband and wife team)is a deeply researched tome larded with the tumultuous history of the reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I of France, and Charles V Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Hapsburg Empire, …
Continue reading 16th C. England: leaders worse than ours today
New painting gladdens 19th c. wartime Paris
Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism by Sebastian Smee is a well-researched account of France from the reign of Napoleon III through the end of his empire, the Franco-Prussian War he had provoked, the radical socialist “Commune” that followed, and, finally, the establishment of a calmer republic that lasted into the …
Continue reading New painting gladdens 19th c. wartime Paris
An absorbing novel as cold weather sets in
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a noteworthy piece of fiction. If you liked Rooney’s Normal People, you’ll enjoy being drawn into this newest book. The narrative line is: two brothers, both grieving the recent death of their father, are alienated from each other and, we learn, from themselves. Peter, age 32, is a barrister known …
Yes, we can still give thanks!
My stuffing is made. If the weather permits, we'll be together with family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Friends and acquaintances keep reaching out, asking "what are we going to do?" They're not referring to how best to carve the turkey, which football games to watch, or whether to tune in to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 