Review by George Yatchisin In Charles Laughton’s fantastic 1955 fairy tale noir Night of the Hunter, Robert Mitchum’s curdled preacher is infamous for having “love” and “hate” tattooed across the…
Category: Genres
How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness by Jessica Bell
CRB Brief Review by Peter Snell How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness is a tale of ordinary people and their struggles to have a happy and satisfying life. It is set…
Ladies Who Lunch: a satirical taste of L.A. by Josef Woodard
Review by George Yatchisin It’s 1990-something, and although fabulous Danielle Wiffard’s marriage is about to blow, fortunately for her (and this book’s readers), all of L.A.’s eligible bachelors, not to…
We Are Pilgrims: Journeys In Search of Ourselves by Victoria Preston
Review by Linda Lappin As Bruce Chatwin relates in Songlines, our remote ancestors revered features of their landscape: mountain, rock, river, tree, cave, imbuing them with spiritual meaning and celebrating them in…
Razor Wire Wilderness by Stephanie Dickinson
Review by Walter Cummins While the incarceration of Krystal Riordan dominates the pages of Razor Wire Wilderness—along with the ongoing miseries of her life since the day she was born—the…
Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future by James Shapiro
Review by David Starkey The introduction to James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future recounts the Public Theater’s 2017 staging…
The Death of the Artist: How Creators are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech by William Deresiewicz
Review by Brian Tanguay For artists are these the best of times or the worst of times? Has technology toppled many of the barriers that once prevented aspiring musicians, filmmakers,…
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught Between by Eric Nusbaum
Review by George Yatchisin If there were any justice, the names Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop would be as well-remembered a baseball triumvirate as Tinker, Evers, and Chance. But…
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Review by Clara Oropeza From what corners of our lives do we summon the will to survive the wickedness of life? This seems to be a central question in Of…
Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967-1975 by Richard Thompson with Scott Timberg
Review by George Yatchisin When my physical therapist saw the book I brought to PT, asked what I was reading, and looked totally nonplussed, I have to admit it hurt…