The Brothers: A tragedy decades in the making
Through a recent conversation about Russian politics, I learned about Masha Gessen?s 2015 book ?The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy,? about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev, the brothers behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Both had been written off as radicalized Chechens whose newfound religious zeal caused them to avenge their Muslim brothers,…
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Love is a baseball field: “Shoeless Joe”
?If you build it, he will come.? Besides ?Shoeless Joe,? there are few sports novels (actually, none that I can think of) that have such an iconic line. W.P. Kinsella connects with it on page one. ?Three years ago at dusk on a spring evening, when the sky was a robbin?s-egg blue and the wind…
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Review: What Does This Button Do? by Bruce Dickinson
When you are a sword-wielding, jet flying, human air raid siren, it shouldn’t be surprising that your memoir stands out from the deluge of books from your peers. But Bruce Dickinson’s new book What Does This Button Do? An Autobiography still manages to surprise, entertain, and break the bold a bit. While he’s most well-known…
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Red Mafiya explains a lot
With all the constant headlines about Russia, I made an effort to seek out books that examined criminal enterprises in the former Soviet Union published prior to our current political obsession. My thought was that I could fill in my own knowledge of the culture without reading being tainted by opinion influenced by the right…
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Pregnant With Satan?s Spawn Or Just Hormonal? “Rosemary?s Baby”
A young woman finds herself trapped in a web of deceit, betrayal, and Satanism in Ira Levin?s 1966 classic, ?Rosemary?s Baby.? Written the same year Time magazine printed their infamous ?Is God Dead?? issue, the book reflects Baby Boomers? changing values against those of the Tommy Dorsey era. (Or should I say the Frank Sinatra…
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