Thursday, December 1, 2016
A splendid, absorbing read in which you feel as if you’ve been dropped onto the set of a Mozart opera.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:36AMSaturday, October 29, 2016
Frances Wilson's biography of Thomas De Quincey is superb, written with enormous empathy and insight.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:18AMWednesday, October 5, 2016
This is a book about “survivor’s guilt,” and also about the terrible loneliness that comes of losing so many whom you love.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:04AMSaturday, August 27, 2016
If any of you are harboring a budding young musician either at home or school or in the extended family, investigate the possibility of he or she attending BUTI.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:18AMFriday, August 5, 2016
Kent Haruf's novels remind us that even in the hardest lives, there is joy, often delicate and evanescent, but joy, nevertheless.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:04AMMonday, June 27, 2016
This canny writer is concerned with the kind of complicated family relationships that engaged his Jewish literary forebears.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:43AMTuesday, May 17, 2016
You may have read similar earlier works, but Dominic Smith’s novel is in a class of its own.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:08AMThursday, April 28, 2016
There are resemblances to Virginia Woolf not only in the terrific prose but also in Helen Dunmore’s awareness that much of family life lies in what is not said as much as in what is said.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:02AMTuesday, April 5, 2016
Perhaps in the future Michelle Hoover will let her very real talent take her into the unknown, where narrative and myth merge.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:33PMSaturday, March 5, 2016
Iris Murdoch proves a wonderful companion: funny, honest, insightful, and courageous.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 06:33PMMonday, January 25, 2016
I urge anyone interested in the voice and or just terrific music to try to attend one of Mirror Visions' concerts.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:37AMWednesday, January 20, 2016
This novel about Thomas Hardy becomes not only the story of an odd triangle, but also a meditation on the nature of art.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:13PMFriday, December 18, 2015
We root for all of the ordinary folk who survived -- and are still surviving even now -- one of the bleakest and saddest periods in Russia’s history.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:49PMWednesday, November 18, 2015
One must be impressed by memoirist Matthew Spender, who refuses to descend into resentment or anything resembling self-pity despite a very strange childhood.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:09AMThursday, October 29, 2015
Death By Water plumbs the depths of the human condition in an entirely original way.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:50AMTuesday, September 8, 2015
Makine may be plagiarizing himself, which is a perfectly legitimate thing for a writer to do, but scenes of spring snow and railroad stations become clichés even in talented hands.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:38AMSaturday, August 15, 2015
Tony Judt is an American treasure, in time he may prove as great to our country as George Orwell and Albert Camus are to theirs.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:16PMMonday, July 13, 2015
Anne Enright's prose, especially when she is firmly rooted in Ireland, sings; she has the ability to get the details both of setting and character, and a wonderful ear.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:46AMThursday, June 11, 2015
Here is a terrific documentary that will appeal to people who grew up in the mid-20th century and also their children and grandchildren.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:14AMWednesday, June 10, 2015
It is worth your time watching Shakespeare & Company's two fine actresses come to an understanding that is cathartic and real.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:21PMSaturday, May 23, 2015
Peter Davis knows Hollywood from the inside and has written a splendid novel about the great days of Tinsel Town with the kind of passion you rarely see anywhere these days.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:33AMWednesday, April 29, 2015
This is a powerful, intensely felt short novel about the lives of ordinary people by a very young Irish writer.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:34PMFriday, April 10, 2015
Erebus is wonderful, original book that defies categorization.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:04AMThursday, April 2, 2015
The Bridal Chair will not only answer many questions about this complicated, famous family; like Chagall’s best work, it will also linger in the mind.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:01AMMonday, March 9, 2015
Kudos to the Celebrity Series for bringing this interesting and innovative young musician to Boston and kudos to Cameron Carpenter for such a fascinating few hours.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:24AMMonday, February 23, 2015
Göran Rosenberg has written a calm yet passionate account of events after Auschwitz, a memoir marked by great intelligence and equally great emotional intensity.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:56AMFriday, February 13, 2015
Daisy Hay turns her sharp yet sympathetic eye on Mary Anne and Benjamin Disraeli, whose marriage seemed unlikely at the start but which grew into something not only strange but, even in mode…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:44AMSunday, February 1, 2015
Breath & Imagination is a realistic, moving, and very revealing take on what it means to be a black artist in America, both then and now.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 07:41PMFriday, January 2, 2015
After reading this scholarly and accessible biography, I am convinced that Storm Jameson's life is a must for anyone fascinated by the history of women writers in the 20th century.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:48AMMonday, November 24, 2014
What this magisterial biography does so well is give us an even-handed portrait of a remarkable, flawed man who is obsessed with a need to help the disenfranchised.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:07AMFriday, October 17, 2014
Gabriel is a searing experience to read, filled with sadness but also humor and forbearance, and may give comfort to parents who are dealing with difficult children.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:10AM 
