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The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Elements by prolific Irish writer John Boyne is an intense novel that takes you into the darkest places of human behavior and miraculously brings you into the light with a slender promise of hope. Broadly speaking, it is about…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The year was 1976. It was nearing deadline time at the The Boston Phoenix. Editor Bill Miller, formerly of the Boston Globe, emerged into the newsroom from his small office. A hush fell as reporters turned to face…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland by Michelle Young is a richly researched account of an apparently nondescript art historian who rose from a low-level volunteer job just prior to the Second…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’ own blog. The Order of the Day by award-winning French novelist and film maker Eric Vuillard is a well-researched and creatively presented story of the Anschluss, Hitler’s move to take over Austria and incorporate it into Germany. It is a brief cautionary…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Names by Florence Knapp offers a rich exploration of identity beginning with our names – how much of our name defines how we see ourselves, how our name influences others’ perceptions of who we are – and expanding her…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Art Thief: a True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel, published in 2023, is a well researched and documented account of one of the most unusual art thieves of all time. For…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Jonathan Weiner is a comprehensive and enormously powerful study of the cycle of poverty in American cities brought about by the eviction of poor people from their homes. Eviction is not…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted by Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is a mystery set in London in 1749. It is a romp, filled with colorful characters, set against the well-detailed urban landscape of the Georgian era. The plot is full of surprises,…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Newton Center Green in Massachusetts was packed on Saturday, despite temperature in the 30’s and a biting wind. A 10-piece local brass band energized the crowd with a rousing Saints Go Marching In. There were young and old, black and…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1995 and was reissued with an afterword in 2023. This is a BIG book not necessarily in length…
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