Aug 27 2023
If you worked for a while in an oil refinery in Louisiana in, say, the mid-1980s (as I did), part of your orientation was hurricane training. The briefing I attended noted that there are two places on earth where the combination of low elevation, coastline shape, concentrated population, limited escape routes, location relative to wind …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/27/katrina-a-history-1915-2015-by-andy-horowitz/
Jun 27 2023
Okay, if you’re a Ben Okri fan, then this is likely going to be your jam. I hadn’t read any of his award-winning work before this collection, so I absolutely jumped at the chance to read the latest publication of the first Black, and at the time youngest, winner of the Booker Prize. And it’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/27/tiger-work-poems-stories-and-essays-about-climate-change-by-ben-okri/
Jun 15 2023
or Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr as he’s credited on the cover of this volume. In 2022, Willie Carver was named Kentucky Teacher of the Year. A homophobic vendetta led by just one woman caused him to decide, only months later, to leave the public school system, but not before testifying before Congress about the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/15/gay-poems-for-red-states-by-willie-carver/
Jun 04 2023
It’s not difficult to guess Orlando Figes’ brief for The Story of Russia: write a history of Russia, accessible to the interested and educated public, acceptable to specialists; keep it under 300 pages; emphasize links between Russia’s deeper past and the government of Vladimir Putin. There is value in the book’s relative brevity, though I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/04/the-story-of-russia-by-orlando-figes/
Apr 30 2023
The title of Katja Berlin’s book translates as Things for Which Women Have to Justify Themselves, and the cover shows a circle divided into four equal parts. They are labeled “Only children,” “Only career,” “Children and career,” and “No children and no career.” She is the creator of a pointedly humorous set of graphs that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/30/wofur-frauen-sich-rechtfertigen-mussen-by-katja-berlin/
Apr 08 2023
Thirty-six seconds. That’s how long the test that sealed Chernobyl’s fate lasted. The test itself was not unreasonable, and could only be performed as a reactor — one of four in operation at the power station in 1986 — was being shut down. It was designed to provide data to understand how the reactor and the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/08/chernobyl-by-serhii-plokhy/
Mar 18 2023
I first read What It Takes in the early 1990s when its subject — the 1988 US presidential election — was, if not exactly fresh in mind, then at least not consigned to the oblivion of an election held decades ago and deemed mostly inconsequential. Cramer’s book made the election not just interesting, but riveting. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/18/what-it-takes-by-richard-ben-cramer/
Feb 22 2023
This graphic novel might be the most relatable thing I’ve ever read about marriage, especially from the perspective of a white man. When gay marriage was legalized in 2013, Robert Kirby and his partner John had already been together for about a decade. They shared a dog and a house, and were thrilled that marriage …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/02/22/marry-me-a-little-by-robert-kirby/
Dec 30 2022
Time for some short takes to clear the desk for the coming year. Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk. Nobel winner Tokarczuk uses very short chapters, each titled “The Time of …”, to depict life in an archetpyal Polish village from just before the outbreak of the First World War through the last years …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/30/wrapping-up-3/
Dec 23 2022
A Young Readers edition of her bestseller We Are Not Here To Be Bystanders. Wow, this book is a rollercoaster. And let me start out by saying that it’s actually quite good, and honestly great if you’re a young person looking to get started in advocacy and public policy in America, potentially worldwide. Linda Sarsour’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/23/were-in-this-together-by-linda-sarsour/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire