That resulted in her new book, “The Story of Art Without Men.” Jeffrey Brown discussed the book with Hessel for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.
Art History Book Profiles: ‘The Story of Art Without Men’ Author Katy Hessel
Tag Archives: Book Reviews
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – May 5, 2023
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (May 5, 2023) – This week’s @TheTLS features Bruno Schulz – a writer from another Europe; Patrick O’Brian’s bleak vision; Vermeer – a great but flawed exhibition; extreme fandom and Derek Parfit, eccentric genius.
Man of Margins
How Bruno Schulz found freedom on the periphery of life By Boris Dralyuk
It’s more than a little discomfiting to read the great Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz’s description, in his diary from the early 1960s, of his not-quite-friend Bruno Schulz: “A tiny gnome with enormous head, appearing too scared to dare exist, he was rejected by life and slouched along its peripheries”. Written for publication two decades after Schulz was gunned down by a Nazi just outside the ghetto of his occupied native town of Drohobych in November 1942, these words cannot help but seem impious.
Books: Literary Review Magazine – May 2023
Literary Review – May 2023 issue: Donald Rayfield surveys the life and work of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam and R W Johnson reviews the Mandela’s…
The Poet & the Tyrant
‘Osip Mandelstam: A Biography’ By Ralph Dutli
When in 1960 I first came across Osip Mandelstam’s poetry, nobody in the USSR had enjoyed access to his work since the early 1930s and few even knew of his existence, let alone of his death, as he had predicted, in Stalin’s Gulag. His books had been removed from libraries and bookshops.
Heroism & Homicide
‘Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage’ By Jonny Steinberg
Under apartheid, aspiring South African writers frequently marketed themselves to the world as committed and heroic anti-apartheid activists. The enormous success of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country (fifteen million copies sold and counting) showed the way, though Paton was the real McCoy, a committed liberal who suffered for his beliefs.
Books: The Top Twelve Best Reviews – April 2023
12 Books to Read: The Best Reviews of April
Pegasus
Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare
By Chris Laoutaris | Pegasus
After William Shakespeare’s death, his colleagues collected his plays in a single, history-making volume. Review by Malcolm Forbes.
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
By Jonathan Rosen | Penguin Press
A young man’s ife of brilliant promise was overtaken when his struggle with mental illness took a turn into delusion and nightmare. Review by Richard J. McNally.
A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
By Peter Cozzens | Knopf
The most consequential Indian war in U.S. history didn’t take place on the prairie but among the forsts and marshes of the Deep South. Atrocities were committed by both sides. Review by Fergus M. Bordewich.
Knopf
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
By Peter Frankopan | Knopf
The names and dates of battles that changed history are well-remembered. But what about storms or volcanic eruptions? For eons, human civilizations have shaped—and been shaped by—the natural world. Review by Tunku Varadarajan.
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Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – April 28, 2023
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 28, 2023) – This week’s @TheTLS, featuring Abigail Green on 1848; @WeTheBrandon on the geopolitics of space; @woodsgregory on James Purdy; @JulianBaggini on food policy; @scheffer_pablo on the Passion in the Netherlands; @CamilleRalphs_ on poetry anthologies – and more
Preview: London Review Of Books — May 4, 2023
Macron v. Millions – The pensions crisis in France
Pensions – and ‘the fiscal impact of ageing’ – have long troubled the EU. A European Commission paper published in 2016 noted with relief that ‘most EU member states’ were reforming their pension systems. France is one of them. During his first term in office Emmanuel Macron envisaged an ambitious reform plan, but Covid-19 put paid to it. Re-elected in 2022, he put a different plan on the table; at its core is an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64. It has been predictably unpopular. Pensions rank high on the list of French state expenditures. They are one of the cornerstones in France’s edifice of public provision, which is why the sound of drilling and hammering sets most citizens’ teeth on edge.
Healthy Aging: ‘Outlive – The Science And Art Of Longevity’ By Peter Attia
Trained as an oncological surgeon, Attia became interested in longevity because he saw that the “Four Horsemen” worked against it: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. All play a role in an unhealthy system, and all interrelate.
‘OUTLIVE – THE SCIENCE & ART OF LONGEVITY’ BY PETER ATTIA, MD
A data- and anecdote-rich invitation to live better, and perhaps a little longer, by making scientifically smart choices.
If you have Type 2 diabetes, then your chances of developing heart disease, cancer, and neurological disorders increases, and if your goal is to live well in old age, then it behooves you to change your ways in order to keep your insulin reception levels in the clear. How to do so?
The New York Review Of Books – May 11, 2023
Seeing Baya Anew
An exhibition of the Algerian painter’s work liberates it from the political symbolism of late colonialism.
In November 1947 a fifteen-year-old prodigy from colonial Algeria named Baya, described variously as Kabyle, Berber, Muslim, and Arab, exhibited her gouaches and clay sculptures at the Parisian gallery of the art dealer Aimé Maeght. Yves Chataigneau, the French governor of Algeria, and Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Paris Mosque, were the sponsors of the exhibition, and the opening attracted some of the most influential cultural figures of postwar Paris: the writers Albert Camus, François Mauriac, and André Breton; the painters Henri Matisse and Georges Braque; the designer Christian “Bebè” Bérard.
The Perpetual Provocateur
For generations, Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s prints of Roman views defined the popular image of the Eternal City. A profusion of new exhibitions and publications shows why he still speaks to us.
Also in the issue: Jacqueline Rose on C. P. Taylor’s final play, Colin B. Bailey on the Impressionists’ decorations, Wendy Doniger on Bengali tales from the mangrove forests, Christopher Benfey on the Black American potters of the nineteenth century, Jed Perl on high-tech high art, poems by Sasha Debevec-McKenney, Mosab Abu Toha, and Cyrus Console, and much more.
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – April 21, 2023
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 21, 2023) – This week’s issue features @tylercowen on long- vs short-termism; @ecshowalter on Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor; @NickHoldstock on Wang Xiaobo; @BenBollig on Sergio Raimondi; @islomane on noise pollution – and more.
Books: Literary Review Of Canada – May 2023 Issue
Literary Review of Canada – May 2023: Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold features a brief epigraph attributed to Rob Ford: “Everything is fine.” Those three words would be a lot more convincing coming from Jane Jacobs or perhaps even Drake, but coming from the late Toronto mayor, they smack of comedy, irony, and foreboding.
Where’s Johnny?
On the lost art of public conversation: It is right to be suspicious of anyone who claims that some prior epoch was a golden age of anything, whether it be talk shows, family values, civil discourse, or whatever else they find lacking in their own time.
Door Stopper
A historical whodunit: Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto by Carolyn Whitzman
Boomers Daily 