Book Review
Japanese Home Cooking
For the handful of centuries that Japan has been on the minds of westerners, the country has exemplified the mysteries of the East. The island nation’s unique geology, climate, rich waters, and isolation led to a culture, a...
Book Review
Kaizen
If change is the primary law of the universe, why is it so difficult to make lasting changes to our own personal habits and routines? Why does our body/mind vigorously rebel when we set out to cut down on our sugar intake, commit to...
Book Review
Model City
North Korea fascinates a world bored with so many bland, decent-enough democracies. Cowered by the tubby tyrant Kim Jong-un, the nation’s 25 million citizens struggle to make do in a system that’s so handcuffed by sanctions, so...
Book Review
Sonnets to Orpheus
That the greatest poets receive sudden flashes of inspiration is demoralizing to mere mortals. Already so rich in talent, such poets don’t need—or deserve—the metaphorical lightning strike to the ink-filled rods that they wield to...
Book Review
Dressed for a Dance in the Snow
Stalin: if you’re Russian and of a certain age, his name causes your blood to run Siberian cold. It’s not for nothing that Uncle Joe’s twenty-four-year reign (1929–1953) is frequently called the “other Holocaust”—upwards of...
Book Review
Children of Grass
Eighty poets under the influence of Walt share a poem and a comical pose in this winning collection of portraiture and poetry. That the two complement each other so well in coffee-table format is the unexpected delight. On the Rocks I...
Book Review
Scattered Clouds
By avoiding cumbersome punctuation and the formality of capitalization, Reuben Jackson lullabies his way into treasured-voice status, quiet yet forceful. A jazz scholar and former curator with the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington...
Book Review
Cyborg Detective
Jillian Weise identifies as a cyborg. Perhaps that explains her outsized wit, exceptional word skills, and confidence. The author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex and The Book of Goodbyes, her writing on cyborg identity and disability...