I’ve always been a little curious about the Amish, and I was hoping to find out some interesting details about their way of life. Also, the way the book is marketed, I was sort of hoping it was going to be like the book “Unorthodox”, where you’re drawn to and sympathize with the protagonist as he breaks away from a…
A really excellent memoir and coming of age story by a kid who immigrated to America in 1975 during the fall of Saigon, ending up in the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. As he struggles to fit in, he finds comfort and identity in music (particularly punk rock) and in literature, allowing him to navigate the feelings of isolation, the…
This is another book in Aperture’s Photography Workshop Series. The photographer featured in this book is Larry Fink. His black and white photos are definitely pretty interesting, but it’s his commentary that made the bigger impression on me, particularly his comments on perception and perspective. He quotes Lisette Model, a photographer whom he studied with, who once said to him,…
After being amazed by Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” a few weeks back, I was anxious to explore additional novels by him. This semi-autobiographical book was his first major work, published in 1953. It’s a coming-of-age story that deals primarily with religion, although there’s a lot about race, classism, sex, and violence. The themes are heavy and the book, though not too…
This book is by a poet, Anne Boyer, who was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer at the age of 41. The book is composed of several short chapters, each chapter consisting of brief paragraphs, some connected to each other, some not. I found it a difficult book to read. The author gets into the brutal nitty-gritty…
The New York music scene in the late 70s and early 80s is a favorite topic of mine. CBGBs and Max’s were the primary music venues, but a number of smaller clubs that catered to the art scene as well as the music scene made their mark on New York, such as Club 57 and The Mudd Club. This book…
Although I was unfamiliar with the work of playwright David Adjmi, I grabbed this book because I found the uniformly good reviews enticing, especially since the author grew up in the same obscure Brooklyn neighborhood that I did. Adjmi paints a very colorful portrait of Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community. Always feeling like an outsider in his own community, family, and…
Although I’m far enough along in my street photography journey that this book should feel a little simplistic, it’s so well-written and filled with wisdom that I found it refreshing and inspiring. Broken into 20 small chapters, this book offers helpful tips and insightful philosophy regarding street photography. The premise of each chapter is supported with a few of the…
This book is a psychological thriller that didn’t leave me very thrilled at all. Jake and his girlfriend are driving to his parents’ farm, where Jake will introduce his girlfriend to his parents. His girlfriend has mixed feelings about Jake and spends much of her time ruminating on whether to break up with him. After the odd visit with the…
Dorothea Lange was an amazing photographer. She created many iconic images, such as White Angel Bread Line, One Nation Indivisible, and her most famous, Migrant Mother. Her Depression-era photographs were pioneering, and are especially incredible considering so few women were active in photography at that time. Her writing, however, has received much less attention, as have the textual descriptions and…
I’ve wanted to read this Baldwin classic for years, ever since visiting a popular gay bookstore in Philadelphia that named itself after the novel. A few months ago, I read a novel called Swimming in the Dark. In that book, the main characters bond over a shared love of the book. I finally hit The Strand and purchased the book. …
In this book, the author recounts a decades long journey through the gay bars that have played important roles in his life in the many cities that he’s lived in, both in England and the U.S. The book, however, is much more than just a (often sordid) memoir of parties, sex, and drugs (prudes beware). Every chapter asks, in some…
The author is a British screenwriter. He’s also a music fanatic, and has attended hundreds (possibly thousands) of concerts. In this unique memoir, he takes us through his life using concerts (15 in particular) that he’s attended. These concerts serve as touchstones in his life. He starts with a Cliff Richard concert that he attended at age 10, and stops…
I’m a Beatles fan and have read a number of books about them. At first glance this book looked pretty cheesy, and I thought to myself, does the world really need yet another Beatles book? Yes, it does. This book was a gold mine of fascinating stories, in little chapters that you can easily skip if you’ve heard the story…
As someone who has been meditating (almost) every day for the past few years and has also gotten into photography since my retirement a few years ago, I’ve been interested in exploring the possible connection between the two. Both require you to be in the present moment, both require total focus and awareness, and both are most attainable when the…