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Emily Raboteau
Positive The New York Journal of Books \"Reading Lessons for Survival can be disheartening. Robateau’s catalog of the urban woes she and her family face is grim. In one of the essays, she reports on a visit she made to a poor Palestinian village in the West Bank whose water supply is severely curtailed by the Israelis. She wonders why the villagers don’t simply leave. She asks the same question of herself. She and her husband are career professionals with options. Yet they remain in their inhospitable environment. Why? The answer comes in the final essay, as Robateau and her family move into the rundown house in the Bronx they have purchased with all their savings and renovated. She is determined to be resilient, to survive.\
Deborah Jowitt
Mixed New York Journal of Books Given her status as an artist and cultural figure, it is disappointing to read a biography of her that, despite its thorough documentation of her works, and its appreciation of her artistry and staying power, is lifeless. It reads more like a catalog or a collection of program notes than as a portrait of a remarkable woman ... The fault lies in Deborah Jowitt’s narrative method. The book is strictly chronological and focuses on Graham’s work to the neglect of her personal life and its relationship to her art. Graham’s works are chronicled in painstaking detail according to a predictable pattern.
David Mamet
Mixed New York Journal of Books Proceeds to gleefully bite the hand that has generously fed him over the course of his long career ... The book is arranged into short, discontinuous essays under headings whose meaning is often bafflingly obscure.
Werner Herzog, Trans. by Michael Hofmann
Positive New York Journal of Books Herzog’s memoir is really an autobiography, since it covers his entire life and delves into his family history. It comes as a surprise that, after recounting a life full of astonishing adventures and unique achievements, he closes on a pessimistic note.
Annie Ernaux, trans. Alison L. Strayer
Positive New York Journal of Books Reflective rather than descriptive ... The affair and the memoir it produced are entirely centered on the writer. This may strike some readers as cruel and selfish. Others may admire her independence, her skill with language, her defiance of gender stereotypes, and her candor.
Ilyon Woo
Positive New York Journal of Books https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/master-slave-husband-wife
Ruth Brandon
Positive New York Journal of Books Brandon has woven a narrative that intermingles complex romantic entanglements with persistent artistic aspirations, giving readers a book that is one part 20th century cultural history, two parts gossipy soap opera ... What do we learn from Ruth Brandon’s probing account of these artists, connected by their presence in the Arensbergs’ salon? Her attitude toward them might be described as sardonic, stressing as it does the casual, transient nature of their relationships, their carelessness with each other, the selfishness of their motivations. These characteristics of their personal lives overshadow her interest in their artistic output and accomplishments ... Perhaps the key is Duchamp’s pose of indifference in both his personal life and his art, an indifference that cast a spell on those who drifted into his path, but left broken hearts in its wake.
Harley Rustad
Positive The New York Journal of Books Had we been given this revelatory information at its actual moment in the chronological narrative, Stetler’s story would still have been compelling, but for a different, more profound reason...As the story stands, the reader can only feel somewhat shorted, denied the opportunity to participate more fully with Stetler in his anguished search ... Nevertheless, this objection does not detract from the scrupulously thorough process Rustad has followed in retracing the steps of Stetler’s path and arranging them in a powerful narrative ... a disturbing book that leaves you with a sense of wonder and a sense of unease. It’s a book that is not easy to put down.
Sebastian Junger
Mixed New York Journal of Books The narrative spine of the book is Junger’s progress along the route, in whose course he gives us richly detailed descriptions of landscape, camp sites, railroad infrastructure, and rumbling freight trains ... Of psychological freedom, the kind of inner freedom that religious mystics pursue in their quest for union with the divine, or that artists experience when immersed in their craft, or that athletes often experience when mind and body fuse—Junger has nothing to say. It’s not a dimension of freedom that seems to interest him, though for some seekers it is the highest form of freedom because it allows you to be free even if you are in prison ... Junger writes in a blunt, tough, manly style that conjures Hemingway ... This is a book for men who are drawn to an outdoor experience that is difficult, occasionally dangerous, and existentially pointless. Junger acknowledges that his trek is largely a gesture, perhaps merely a stunt.
Sherry Turkle
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... should be required reading for men who care about the emotional landscape of women and the health of their own feminine side ... Turkle’s narrative is skillfully assembled, like pieces in a puzzle. She effectively blends the story of her growth in self-awareness with her professional realization that computers pose threats to the humans who have created them. Empathy is the human quality that makes self-awareness possible, and it is also the quality that can humanize the technology that rules our present era.