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By Susan Zakin (Author), Bill McKibben (Author), Chris Jordan (Photographer)
By Ellen Goodman
$13
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By Shashi Tharoor —
The raw pathos of the characters in “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” is of the kind usually found in great fiction, except in Katherine Boo’s book, they’re real people.
Posted on Feb 24, 2012
READ MORE | 1425 READS
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By Mel White — James C. Hormel’s transformation from a confused and closeted gay kid to the nation’s first openly gay ambassador is chronicled in his memoir “Fit to Serve.”
Posted on Feb 17, 2012
READ MORE | 4452 READS
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By Thomas Byrne Edsall —
Are voters as polarized as their elected officials? The question, which has serious implications in an election year, has put political scientists at loggerheads in several new and recent books.
Posted on Feb 10, 2012
READ MORE | 1043 READS
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By Cherilyn Parsons — “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson is a rich, careening, dystopian tale that gives us a visceral hit of life inside North Korea.
Posted on Feb 3, 2012
READ MORE | 3442 READS
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By Jonathan Yardley —
“Himmler was the complete opposite of a faceless functionary,” Peter Longerich writes in “Heinrich Himmler.” “The position he built up over the years can instead be described as an extreme example of the almost total personalization of political power.”
Posted on Jan 27, 2012
READ MORE | 10728 READS
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By William Drozdiak —
In “After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent,” Walter Laqueur explains how Europe’s success in constructing a harmonious community of states actually masked serious social, economic and political vulnerabilities that proved too fragile to bear the world’s most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Posted on Jan 13, 2012
READ MORE | 2763 READS
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By Jean Randich — Lauren B. Davis’ thrilling, polyphonic new novel, “Our Daily Bread,” takes us into a backwoods clan rife with child abuse and incest, and asks the question: “When does another person’s suffering become my responsibility?”
Posted on Jan 6, 2012
READ MORE | 1955 READS
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By Jeff Shesol —
“The desire to be inspired,” William F. Gavin writes in “Speechwright,” “to be uplifted, to be made to feel deeply, to be swept away, and thrilled is the mark of jaded citizens who have forgotten that the major goal of political rhetoric should be to make good arguments, clearly and honestly.”
Posted on Dec 30, 2011
READ MORE | 1522 READS
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By Mel White — According to James H. Cone’s “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” Jesus was crucified by the same principalities and powers that lynched almost 5,000 black people in this country. The lynching tree is the cross in America.
Posted on Dec 23, 2011
READ MORE | 8788 READS
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By Julia Frey —
A marvelous new biography of Vincent Van Gogh asks what if it was untreatable epilepsy that drove him mad, he didn’t cut off his lobe for a woman and he was killed by delinquents rather than committing suicide?
Posted on Dec 16, 2011
READ MORE | 1751 READS
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By Christen Clifford —
Jennifer Baumgardner’s new book of essays and interviews, “F ’em! Goo Goo, Gaga, and Some Thoughts on Balls,” connects generations of women thinking about women, from the suffragettes to women’s libbers, from riot grrrls to Lady Bloggers.
Posted on Dec 9, 2011
READ MORE | 3234 READS
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By Kelly Johnson —
Ellen E. Schultz’s “Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit From the Nest Eggs of American Workers” reveals how fleecing the elderly is just business as usual for corporations. If the retirement industry isn’t reined in, she concludes, we’ll be right back where we were in the 1930s.
Posted on Dec 2, 2011
READ MORE | 8035 READS
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By Celia Chazelle — David M. Kennedy’s “Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America” is part memoir, part police thriller, taking us through the genesis and evolution of one of the most promising responses to urban violence and drug markets in the last two decades.
Posted on Nov 25, 2011
READ MORE | 1465 READS
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By Rayyan Al-Shawaf —
Howard Jacobson’s novel “No More Mr. Nice Guy” travels well-worn territory: the male midlife crisis in search of laughs.
Posted on Nov 17, 2011
READ MORE | 1097 READS
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