Review: Hiroshima, by John Hersey
John Hersey’s account of the lives of six survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was first published just a year after the events. Despite the passage of more than seventy years, the work endures,…
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Review: Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, by Roy Peter Clark
Roy Peter Clark has been teaching writing to journalists and others (including schoolchildren) for several decades — and now he has taught me. I’ve read a number of writing books over the years and this…
Review: Vox by Christina Dalcher
In the near future, a populist demagogue comes to power in America and rolls back decades of progress on women’s rights. In the end, women are forced to wear bracelets which limit the number of…
Review: We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Film, by Noah Isenberg
This is the story of Casablanca — where the story came from, how the film was made, and its “afterlife” right up until a Facebook post by Elizabeth Warren on a recent New Year’s Eve,…
Review: The Boy on the Bridge
M.R. Carey has done it again. The Girl With All the Gifts was a terrific example of post-apocalyptic zombie fiction and this book is (mostly) the prequel. The problem with prequels is that you know…
Review: The Martian Girl, by Andrew Martin
To be clear, this is not a book about Martians, or even girls. The central character is a woman in her late thirties, Jean Beckett, a writer who lives in today’s London. She is writing…
Review: Just one damned thing after another, by Jodi Taylor
I love time travel stories. And I love history. This book had a lot of promise. The main character, Max (who’s female), is witty and loveable. The book is full of action. There are lots…
100 years later: Lessons of the three South Caucasian republics
This is the text of my presentation to the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Regional Lab held in Kvareli, Georgia. The event was attended by young leaders and activists from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. I have been…
Review: A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
This is one of those books that I started to read, put aside, and then picked up much later and decided to give it a second chance. And it’s a good thing that I did….
Review: The Race to Save the Romanovs, by Helen Rappaport
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the murder of the Russian imperial family by the Bolsheviks. Among those killed were not only the hated Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra, but also their five…