Coast-to-coast commentary about books
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‘Hateful is the dark-blue sky’
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life; ah, whyShould life all labor be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?And things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful past.Let
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Better Left Alone
Sailing From Byzantium, by Colin Wells The subtitle of this dreadfully dull book is “How a Lost Empire Shaped the World.” So, how did a lost empire shape the world? It preserved ancient texts which were then taken up in the Renaissance. That’s how. OK. Now you don’t have to read this book.
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I might be wrong
Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcon This is an admirable book. But not a very good one. It’s a promising set-up – in a traumatized, unnamed (Latin American) society, one of the biggest radio stars is a woman who reads the names of of people who have disappeared during a wrenching civil war. But sometimes
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Inelegant and Unreadable
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery Utter claptrap. An apartment building concierge who is secretly well-read and intellectual. A precocious teenager who plans to commit suicide upon her next birthday. They meet, they talk. Oof. Stay far away.
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Dog’s Life
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski I admit that I had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up. It was just one of those books that I had seen a hundred times in the “Our Staff Recommends…” sections of bookstores. No one told me this novel featured sentient
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Dicking Around
Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the summer of 1967, I remember thinking that Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, and the Temptations might save my life – literally. I was eight years old and I thought maybe if the rioting in Bed-Stuy spread to my tony but nearby
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More Escapism
The Wheelman, by Duane Swierczynski This is a snappy caper novel of the violent, deadpan-humor type, pretty much the same book as “Caught Stealing,” but set in Philadelphia as opposed to New York. Also the protagonist in this one is a criminal caught up in a caper gone wrong, whereas in “Caught Stealing” the deus
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Old Mind, New Mind
An Oresteia, translated by Anne Carson Anne Carson is probably my favorite writer these last 10 years or so. I first read her in 2001 or thereabouts – “Autobiography of Red” was my introduction to her – and since then I’ve read and reread pretty much everything she’s written. Only “Eros the Bittersweet” failed to
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This Republic of Suffering
This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust Sometimes I read about a book and a little voice in my head says, “OK, now I know what that book is about, and I have no need, reason or desire to read it.” This little voice in my head is generally a very, very good guide,
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Baltimore’s Best
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler I think I first read Anne Tyler around 1981. The book was “Morgan’s Passing” and I remember feeling skeptical about it and about Tyler. I don’t recall much about the novel now except for a scene when a puppet at a children’s party asks, “Is there a
Far From Brooklyn 