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 …
Continue reading Courage in the face of fascism: the warnings of history
When I was a child, my mother took me on a "cruise" of the Charles River. What do I remember of it? The closer we got to Boston Harbor, the worse the smell. You could see the luminous blue/green oil slicks on the surface. Your stomach would churn from the sewage routinely dumped from the …
Continue reading Sewer to sparkle: the cleanup of Boston Harbor
The Age of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone by Mary Gabriel is a lush portrait of the burgeoning world of modern art, especially in Paris, in the early 20th century. If you love Paris, if you love Matisse, Degas, Picasso, Cezanne and other giants of the time, and if you have always …
The Mountains Sing , a first novel by Vietnamese poet and author Nguyen Phan Que Mai, is a saga about the Tran family, against the backdrop of 20th century Vietnamese history, is told from two perspectives. First is that of grandmother Dieu Lan, telling her family story to her granddaughter Hu’o’ng, nicknamed Guava. Dieu Lan, …
Continue reading A Vietnamese novelist captures troubled history
The Known World by Edward P. Jones , published in 2003, is a richly woven saga set in antebellum South between 1840 and 1860. The central focus is the Townsend family headed by Augustus and Mildred, who are freed former slaves. They have also bought freedom from their white former owner, William Robbins, for their …
Continue reading A novel novel: when blacks were slave owners
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
Marjorie Arons-Barron 