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In Heaven, Everything Is Fine

Heaven: Poems Rowan Ricardo Phillips Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015; 80pp Heaven, Rowan Ricardo Phillips‘s new collection, dazzles. Nominated last week for the National Book Award, it’s a playful inquiry by an imaginative poet-critic into the nature of capital-H Heaven. While its formal satisfactions derive from its subtle internal symmetries and architectonic qualities, Heaven is also […]

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The New Greatest Generation: The Mission Continues

Charlie Mike: A True Story of Heroes Who Brought Their Mission Home Joe Klein Simon & Schuster, 2015; 320pp The mind, body, and spirit of the American soldier are at the heart of Joe Klein’s moving new book, Charlie Mike. Told in a brisk, anecdotal style, it’s the story of the men and women who came home from Afghanistan and Iraq. They came […]

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Doug Wright and the Erotics of Language

Doug Wright’s work is a broad church. He won an Obie in 1996 for the arch, racy Quills, which imagines the last days of the Marquis de Sade in the Charenton asylum. In 2004, he won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for I Am My Own Wife, a play about the German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, […]

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Iraq: The Unraveling

The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq by Emma Sky PublicAffairs, 2015; 400pp One of the most remarkable features of Emma Sky’s gripping account of her experiences during the Iraq War is the fact that she was there at all. Time and again, visiting officials — Colin Powell, Tony Blair, David Miliband, Barack Obama […]

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Growing Up With George

A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up With George by Kelly Carlin St. Martin’s Press, 2015; 336pp George Carlin plays the part of the magical storybook father for much of his daughter Kelly’s new memoir, A Carlin Home Companion, due to be published on September 15. He’s the fun dad, the dad who lets you do as you please. He […]

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