Joe Winkler

Communal Needs and Individual Desires: A Review of Amos Oz’s “Between Friends”

January 8, 2014 No Comments

Between Friends by Amos Oz Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 179 p. After a lifetime of international acclaim for your writing, what do you do? Do you “retire?” like Philip Roth, or do you simply rest on your laurels and enjoy your accomplishment? Both sound pretty great, and you couldn’t begrudge anyone for choosing either. But Amos Oz continues to churn out important and impressive work that serve as a sort of State of the Union on the Israeli soul and Jewish […]

Year of Favorites

A Year of Favorites: Joe Winkler

December 11, 2013 1 Comment

Some of the best non-fiction this year came from the realm of historical documents. Though Justice Scalia always writes a better, more entertaining and engaging opinion (albeit one that betrays a frighteningly archaic set of biases), Justice Kennedy wrote one for the ages because through his sometimes clunky legal opinions he penned one of the most redemptive, straightforward and important statements of this 21st century, denouncing DOMA:

Books, Featured, Poetry

Reading Poetry in Autumn

November 13, 2013 No Comments

Looking at the long history of autumn imagery in poetry one gets the sense that this season, perhaps more than others, served as a sort of initiation, or test for artists, a canvas to push the boundaries of their imagination. Whether because the season engenders this ancient devotion (it does), or because the tradition itself demands some gift or sacrifice to the Lords of autumn (it should), it’s hard to tell, but that tradition contains a gluttony of beauty trying […]

Book Review, Books, reviews

Lessons in Language from David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner: A Review of “Quack This Way”

November 7, 2013 No Comments

Quack this Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing by Brian Andrew Garner Penrose; 146 p. By the looks of it, the book, Quack this Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing, a new offering from the DFW legacy should serve as a footnote, at best, on the acclaimed author’s life. In 2001, The New Republic commissioned a book review from Wallace on Bryan Garner’s then little-known book on modern […]

Book Review, Books, reviews

The Unassuming Power of Robert Walser’s “A Schoolboy’s Diary”

October 28, 2013 No Comments

A Schoolboy’s Diary and Other Stories by Robert Walser; translated by Damion Searles NYRB Classics; 208 p. The story goes that legendary Swiss Modernist writer, Robert Walser, met Lenin during World War I. Both found themselves in Zurich and when they met, Walser, reportedly, only said, “So you, too, like fruitcake?” This odd story captures the allure and abiding mystery of Walser and his works: he created worlds of endless ambiguity that felt both of this world and dreamily aloof. […]

Books, Featured

A Love That Bleeds You Dry: In Praise of New York City

October 15, 2013 No Comments

This is the story of a city. A city so romanticized, so heavily weighed down by dreams, desires, and outlandish expectations as to receive an incommensurate backlash from people disappointed that it couldn’t fulfill their wildest hopes (can anything?) Welcome to New York City, the city of too many nicknames, less a city, and now the target for mass cultural frustration with corporations, big government, bureaucracy, now that partner who promised unconditional love and support but really just gets into bed […]

Book Review, Books

One Year in a “Modernist Mosaic”: Kevin Jackson’s “Constellation of Genius” Reviewed

October 1, 2013 No Comments

Constellation of Genius: 1922: Modernism Year One by Kevin Jackson Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 544 p. Ezra Pound, that wild artist, muse, and patron of genius, referred to to 1922 as Year One of a new age. He felt so convinced of this idea that he began to date his letters “p s U” – post scriptum Ulysses. That post-war year saw the publishing of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and James Joyce’s Ulysses, among other jewels of modernist art, so a […]

Book Review, Books, reviews

Amidst Progress and Chaos, a “Reverse Genesis”: Niccolo Ammaniti’s “Let the Games Begin” Reviewed

August 20, 2013 No Comments

Let the Games Begin by Niccolo Ammaniti; translated by Kylee Doust Black Cat; 320 p. David Grann, one of the great storytellers and detectives of the amazing in life, tweeted after the DOMA decision that on that day, “I feel like I am inside of history.” Without any explanation, I think we all understood his comment. History, of course, continues to occur every second, but it happens out there, in another country, to other people, and we participate as spectators. […]

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