Book Reviews

On vacation, I always try to fill a hole in my literary knowledge by bringing along a book I aspired to read. This time it was Nabokov and Alice and Wonderland. The only Nabokov I had was a yellowed, or rather browned, version of a book I’d never heard of, Pnin, 1957 edition. The coverContinue reading “Vladimir Nabokov’s PNIN”

A definitive, comprehensive, ultimately optimistic investigation into the suicidal mind.

Anyone interested in writing a family memoir would be well advised to follow Cherington’s progress in writing the book, as she allows the reader to do.

A rags-to-relative-comfort story with a fairytale ending.

This book all about being human, with all the danger, passion, energy, beauty, and danger that entails.

As I looked at Morris sitting next to me recently, I wondered how she had survived…but after reading her book, I now know.

This saga contains fodder aplenty for the mind to chew on…or maybe you’d just like to read it as a heckuva a good story.

These are cautionary tales in that they suggest that we should “awake, awake, take heed,” as the Buddhist evening mantra goes, and confront the destruction before it swells to flood stage. Failing that, these stories are also an affirmation that all is never lost. There is gold to be woven from the dross of persecution; we’ve seen it over and over again. Look inward to find it.

Antrim breaks all the rules in this just-published memoir, achieving a result that is unique and profoundly moving, fascinating, and informative. The story that holds it all together issues from an addled mind where reality is mixed with passion, memory, and illness. Of the classic storylines, this is a man takes a journey, or perhapsContinue reading “Review of ONE FRIDAY IN APRIL, A Story of Suicide and Survival, by Donald Antrim”