Books High and Low

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Guillaume de Machaut, by Siegmund Levarie

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  This brief volume (114 pages) is part of the Great Religious Composers series, and much of the book is a discussion of De Machaut's M...
Saturday, December 26, 2020

Guillaume de Machaut, by Gilbert Reaney

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  I've become interested in the music and poetry of Guillaume de Machaut, born in 1300. He's more well-known for his secular music, ...

There there, by Tommy Orange

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  I loved this book about twelve Native Americans who are coming together in Oakland, CA, for a powwow. In chapters that rotate between the ...

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore

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I'm a little late to the party on this collection of climate change books and films, but better late than never! The film shows Al Gore ...
Monday, December 21, 2020

Fantasyland, by Kurt Andersen

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  This is a fascinating and provocative look at Americans' penchant for believing the fantastical over the realistic, starting with the ...
Monday, December 7, 2020

The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present, by Beaumont Newhall

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  This is a history of photography from 1839 through 1949, when it was published. Containing almost exclusively black and white illustration...
Friday, December 4, 2020

Brassai

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  Brassa ï was one of the most influential French photographers of the 20th century. This book collects many of his most famous photos, gr...
Monday, November 30, 2020

Perpetual Mirage: Photographic Narratives of the Desert West

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This is a collection of essays and accompanying photographs that pulls together many of the earliest pictures taken in the American Southwes...

Swimming in the Dark, by Tomasz Jedrowski

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  I really enjoyed this short novel (191 pages) set in 1980s Poland. It tells the story of two young men who meet and fall in love the summe...

Photographs of the Southwest, by Ansel Adams

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  This book contains a collection of 109 photographs by Ansel Adams from the 1920s through the 1960s. They include landscapes, portraits, st...
Saturday, November 28, 2020

Ansel Adams: Classic Images

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  This is a nice collection of 75 of Ansel Adams' most well-known photographs. It's introduced by John Szarkowski, a photographer hi...

The Beekeeper of Aleppo, by Christy Lefteri

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This is a powerful novel about a refugee couple from Aleppo whose son died in a bombing. Nuri and his wife Afra, who was blinded in the bomb...
Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Deacon King Kong, by James McBride

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  I loved this novel by James McBride. It's set in a Brooklyn housing project in the 1960s, when heroin is beginning to be widely availa...
Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Rage, by Bob Woodward

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  To a certain extent, this book is similar to Woodward's last book, Fear, in that it simply reinforces everything you know about Trump ...
Monday, November 2, 2020

Snowpiercer, directed by Bong Joon-Ho

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  I really liked this 2013 film based on a graphic novel. The film was directed by Bong Joon-Ho, who also directed Parasite. The premise is ...
Saturday, October 31, 2020

Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue

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  I have mixed feelings about this first novel by Cameroonian author Imbolo Mbue. It started strong, with chapters alternating between Neni...
Thursday, October 29, 2020

Ansel Adams

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  Looking for a diversion from non-stop news watching, I borrowed this video from my library. I didn't know very much about Ansel Adams,...
Sunday, October 25, 2020

So You Want to Talk about Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

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  So You Want to Talk about Race was selected by my library's climate committee, which has held a number of discussions over Zoom about ...
Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Books: a memoir, by Larry McMurtry

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  I am fond of reading accounts of others' reading habits and interests, so I was happy to find this book on my most recent foray to the...

The Betrayers, by David Bezmozgis

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  I enjoyed this novel about fictional Soviet dissident Baruch Kotler. As a young man in the Soviet Union, he was denounced by a close frien...
Saturday, October 10, 2020

A Warning, by Anonymous (A Senior Trump Administration Official)

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  Unbelievable that this book was published in 2019, and there are so many things that have happened since then. I would really like to know...
Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, by Stephen King

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  I really enjoyed this collection of short stories by Stephen King. I've been a fan for a long time, but I don't pick up his works ...

Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief, by Doris Payne

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  I have mixed feelings about this book. While it was a quick and engaging read, I couldn't help resenting that the author has no regret...

Doing Justice, by Preet Bharara

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  This is a fascinating look at the legal system from one of the most prominent and well-known prosecutors in the U.S. It is a thoughtful an...

Circe, by Madeline Miller

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  I loved this book! It has been many years since I studied Greek mythology as an undergraduate, but this brought it all back to life for me...
Sunday, September 6, 2020

The Contender: Andrew Cuomo, a Biography, by Michael Shnayerson

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  Andrew Cuomo's recent starring role during the COVID-19 pandemic piqued my curiosity about him, leading me to this warts-and-all unaut...

Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson

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  I really enjoyed this short (196 page) novel by Jacqueline Woodson. It tells the story of multiple generations of one family. The context ...

Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama, by John Avlon

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  I was a little late in the game with this book, originally published in 2010, and updated in 2014. It's an in-depth look at the many e...

Uniform Justice, by Donna Leon

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  I really enjoyed this detective story set in Venice, Italy, starring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Uniform Justice is the 12th in the serie...

Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary L. Trump

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I couldn't resist reading this memoir by Mary Trump, the daughter of Trump's older brother Fred. It's a slight book, at only 225...
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