I should begin here with a list of disclaimers as long as the lists of books and authors themselves. One’s reaction to literature has a strong element of personal taste that’s beyond argument. The same is true for judgments of movies, art and music. I was reminded of this recently when dear friends posted an impassioned attack on a movie they had just watched which they thought failed on...
A slight change of plans. I was supposed to follow last week’s list of non-fiction books with a similar fiction list. That’s proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated, so I’m going to defer for another week. Instead, I’m posting an addendum to the non-fiction list. While scouring our bookshelves for fiction titles, I encountered more non-fiction books that I’m embarrassed to have...
Tom Rodriguez was my student at T.H. Rogers School in Houston in the 80s. We reconnected several years ago, to my delight. Recently, he sent me this note, which contains a request which I found, at once, intriguing, flattering and daunting. That he – and his classmates – found the books that I introduced them to forty years ago sufficiently memorable to want more of same is astonishing. Here’s...
Benjamin Ferencz This week’s blog entry follows a...
I’ve just finished reading the second of two books by a British lawyer named Phillippe Sands. The books were a gift from a historian friend who knows our tastes well enough to recommend works that will resonate with us. I think I’ve already written about the first, The Ratline, which, among other things, is the story of Sands’ encounter with the sons of two Nazi war criminals, each of whom deals...