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The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Flesh by Hungarian-British author David Szalay was recently announced as the winner of the 2025 Booker Award. Although the Booker board called it “a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unraveled by a series of events beyond his…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin was published in 1982 and was recently discovered by a friend, who recommended it to me. It is a well-drawn portrait of the Solo-Miller family, an affluent New York family steeped in tradition and guided…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America by Barbara Demick is a stellar piece of journalistic reporting in book form, laying bare in well-researched details the far-reaching impacts of China’s One Child Policy. For more than 30 years,…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Massachusetts, for long the nation’s undisputed leader in education, is slipping. It has been slower than other states to rebound from the pandemic. Too many third grade children can’t read. Only 1/3 of MA 4th graders & MA 8th graders read…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Should people suffering with excruciating pain in the last six months of their lives have the legal option to self-administer doctor-prescribed medicine for a more gentle passing? The fight for this right has been going on for more…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. For a populist President who campaigned against the foreign entanglements of his predecessors and raged against nation building, it’s stunning that he would launch a military action against Venezuela that the vast majority of Americans oppose, at least…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Incumbency combined with voter inertia are a mighty force in keeping officials in office, be they high-performing or flawed. Nowhere is this truer than in down-ballot races, when all the excitement is at the top (e.g., the 2026…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Two weeks ago, I had knee replacement surgery, so my posting will be limited through the rest of the month. Here’s a great big book to hold you over in the interim. Meanwhile, happy holidays – yes, all…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Granddaughter is a pretty straightforward novel by German writer Bernhard Schlink, translated by Charlotte Collins. The time is contemporary Germany, and Berlin book store owner Kaspar comes home to find wife Birgit dead in the bathtub, apparently by drowning. They…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. 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…
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