Reviews

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. An Education: How I changed My mind about Schools and Almost Everything Else is an eye-opening and deeply personal memoir, intricately wound up with the story of how our nation has been swept up with and jerked around by…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life” by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is a large but rich memoir of an extraordinary career in journalism.  Perhaps you remember Kristof’s coverage of the slaughter in Darfur, the bloody civil war and mass…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. 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…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins is a mighty book, in length (544 pages) and in the majesty of the natural world that is its backdrop.  The writing is often captivatingly poetic and deeply philosophical. Each of the major…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger reminds me of nothing so much as Harvard Law Professor Michael Sandel’s course on justice and making ethical decisions, especially when choosing between two, equally problematic alternatives.  Holsinger’s novel is set in the era of artificial…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Age of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone by Mariel 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…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: A Story of Mystery and Tragedy on the Gilded Age Frontier by Maura Jane Farrelly is a perfect book for someone who revels in the process of researching a story, over and above being swept…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. After the Last Border by Jessica Goudreau should be required reading for people who fear or loathe strangers coming to the United States to avoid persecution, war and chaos in their home countries.  The author tells of two such women, weaving…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. 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,…