From Fatima Munroe
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown. But being married to a Chicago bully is even more of a headache. Will these women live through it? Or will the pressure be too much?”
Posted on May 7, 2018
Spitting Image
By SIU Press
“Kara van de Graaf’s debut collection heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary poetry. Through poems that balance personal recollection with ekphrasis, science, and meditation, Van de Graaf searches for answers in the fluctuating relationship between the body and the self.
“Taking as its primary theme the exploration of the female body in current culture, Spitting Image considers the myriad intersections of the body and gender, desire, relationships, and otherness.”
Posted on May 1, 2018
Winner: The Odyssey Of Echo Company
By The Society Of Midland Authors
The Society of Midland Authors announces its choices Monday for its annual awards, honoring the best books by Midwest authors published in 2017. In each category, a panel of literary judges chose a winner, as well as one or more honorees whose work was also deemed worthy of recognition. The Society will present the awards May 8 in Chicago.
ADULT NONFICTION
WINNER: Doug Stanton, The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War. (Stanton lives in Traverse City, Michigan.)
See also: It’s An Extraordinary Time To Be Traverse City Author Doug Stanton.
Posted on April 9, 2018
The Slits’ Viv Albertine Has A New (Her Second) Memoir Out That Brilliantly Chronicles Outsiderism, But Does She Really Have To Be Done With Men?
By Steve Rhodes
“Viv Albertine’s new memoir is a chronicle of outsiderness that goes beyond her years in the Slits to explore class and gender, her parents and sibling rivalry,” Sean O’Hagan writes for the Guardian.
Ooh, that sounds good.
“[A]nd why she’s done with men.”
Ugh. Ya know, sometimes Not All Men is the appropriate response.
Let’s take a look.
Posted on April 3, 2018
The Soul Of America’s Media
By Steve Rhodes
A recent Axios newsletter item:
First look: Jon Meacham on racism, extremism
Random House has moved up publication of Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels to May 7.
Posted on March 13, 2018
The Autobiography Of Director Jerry London (Hogan’s Heroes, Rockford Files, Happy Days, Brady Bunch, Six Million Dollar Man, Mary Tyler Moore Show)
By Samera Entertainment
As one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, Jerry London’s career spanned over 40 years and saw him direct more than 350 episodic television shows.
London was also at the helm of over 40 Movies-of-the-Week and 11 blockbuster mini-series, including Emmy Award-winning Shogun and Ellis Island.
London directed some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, such as Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Whoopi Goldberg and Annette Bening.
In his new book, From I Love Lucy to Shogun . . . and Beyond: Tales From the Other Side of the Camera, London and his writing partner Rhonda Collier humorously detail the story of how a scrawny kid standing in the middle of the tennis courts at Alhambra High School in the San Gabriel Valley went on to become one of the most sought-after directors in television history.
With unflinching candor and wit, their book leads the reader through the closed-door deals, absurd antics of the famous and near disasters on exotic locations and film sets all over the world.
Posted on March 7, 2018
The Scientist And The Forger: Probing A Turbulent Art World
By Presswire
Following the success of The Scientist and the Forger: Insights into the Scientific detection of Forgery in Paintings, written by Egyptian scientist and educator Jehane Ragai and published in 2015, World Scientific Publishing is releasing, a new and somewhat different, second edition in March, which deepens the reader’s journey into the intriguing underworld of the greatest art crimes to date.
Through a series of case studies, Ragai plunges the reader into the tensions and intricacies of an alternately booming and cooling international art market, highlighting in the process the plights of the expert, the collector and the auction house.
How can we determine whether it was Leonardo’s hand that created Salvador Mundi? How can we prove that a suspected Pollock is a forgery? How can Man in a Black Cravat be seemingly incontrovertibly attributed to Lucien Freud, despite this artist’s adamant refusal to recognize it as one of his own
How can we safeguard the art market for present and future generations? And can a psychological interpretation shed light on the perplexing behavior of Ann Freedman, the former president and director of the Knoedler Gallery?
Building on the first edition, these are some of the questions that Ragai uses to reveal how art historians and scientists collaborate conclusively to authenticate paintings or demonstrate that they are forgeries.
Posted on March 2, 2018
Here’s What Happens To Aid Projects When The Money Dries Up And The Spotlight Fades
By Denis Dragovic/The Conversation
As a former aid worker, I often wondered about what happened to the projects I worked on years later. Did the anti-corruption commission we founded itself become corrupt? Having given grants to women to start businesses, did the men allow them to work? And what about the community trained in maintaining the water pumps – did they see through their part of the bargain?
Evaluations, lauded by donors, report on a moment of time when the gloss is still shining. We don’t care, or possibly dare, to look back five or 10 years later to see what happened.
I did. I wanted to know what happened to the projects and the people from a decade of aid work spanning East Timor, Iraq and South Sudan. I bought airline tickets, wrangled visas, and set off on a journey that changed my view of the aid industry.
Posted on February 28, 2018
Writing’s Power To Deceive
By Andrew Elfenbein/The Conversation
When I was researching and writing my new book, The Gist of Reading, I wanted to explore long-held assumptions about reading and how we process what we read.
Some of these assumptions have changed through time. For example, as novels became popular in the 18th century, many warned that they were dangerous and had the potential to cultivate ignorance and immorality in readers, especially female ones.
Today, many would consider that view antiquated. People probably think that reading a narrative – fiction or otherwise – might be able to influence a reader’s opinions or personal beliefs. But their prior knowledge of real-world facts should be safe.
For example, readers might read a story in which a character mentions in passing that Hillary Clinton, rather than Donald Trump, won the 2016 election. This shouldn’t influence readers’ ability to quickly respond that Trump was the real winner, right?
And yet I came across a substantial amount of psychology work that has demonstrated how reading stories – both nonfiction and fiction – has a powerful ability to distort readers’ prior knowledge.
Posted on February 20, 2018
The Last 100 Days Of FDR
By Roosevelt University
Many Americans and people around the world remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous first 100 days in office, but few are aware of the many challenges he faced in the final months of his presidency, which is the focus of historian David Woolner’s, The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace, released in December.
Among many highlights, the book cites confidential memos from Roosevelt’s doctors, recently declassified records from the Office of Strategic Services, as well as previously unreleased information from the president’s daily calendar and contact list.
Woolner pulls back the curtain on everything from Roosevelt’s private life to what was involved in facing Stalin at the Yalta Conference in 1945.
Accounts of FDR pushing for the establishment of the United Nations and the president’s support for the creation of a homeland for Jews in Palestine are featured as well in the book, which has received rave reviews from critics and historians alike who cite both its “precision” and “authenticity.”
Woolner will appear at a discussion and book signing on Wednesday at Roosevelt University, at 430 South Michigan Avenue.
Posted on February 15, 2018