http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 26 Sep 2002 03:23:02 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/09/26/032302.php Jennie L. TaliaferroThe Lovely Bones: A Novel Alice Sebold's first novel The Lovely Bones has been #1 for many weeks on both Amazon.com's and the NYTimes's Bestseller lists for good reason. It's a different kind of "mystery" novel, told by the murder victim herself where she looks down on her living family and friends from Heaven. From the book's opening: "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn't happen." I was hooked. I had to hear Susie Salmon's story in which she tells the reader not only who killed her and how, but she also relates how her family and friends deal with her death. It is only after they have accepted this loss as part of Life that Susie can finally leave them and be truly dead--to them and to the world--and free to make her home in her heaven. I thought this story was particularly appropriate to emerge in the year when America had witnessed 3,000 "ordinary" people being murdered and I imagined the 9/11 victims to have stories very like Susie's, full of the poignancy of how good it was to be alive and living again among those that one loves and who return that love. It also had meaning for me personally, as my own mother passed away right after the attacks and while she died from natural causes, I had to deal with her death, too, although I know that it is infinitely more difficult to mourn someone whose life has been ended abruptly by murder, as was Susie's and the 9/11 victims. It is more difficult and unacceptable still when the persons killed are young and haven't yet "lived out their lives." (Susie muses on getting her first kiss from a boy the week before her death and sadly realizes that this is all the grown-up sex she will ever know.) This unavoidable dealing with the fact of Death is one of the most horrible "products" of the 9/11 attacks...and given the kidnapping and murder of little girls that have been in the news of late, Susie's tale as told in The Lovely Bones is even more timely. Susie's "voice," which Sebold has gotten exactly right, is so wistful, poetic and sad that you may find yourself near tears in several places, but in the end, she and her loved ones find a kind of peace (but assuredly not "closure") and the quickly-read story ends on a note of celebration for Susie's short life and for every Human Life. Books: Literature and Fiction921@blogcritics.org Thu, 26 Sep 2002 03:23:02 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/08/27/213913.php Jennie L. TaliaferroHere is New York: A Democracy of Photographs I hope you haven't missed the blog WarLog:World War III, kept by Jeff Jarvis, who was destined to be at the World Trade Center on 9/11. His sensitive, thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of events since that day are not to be missed, so when he recommended this photoessay of the 9/11 attacks in New York, I immediately clicked over to Amazon.com and bought it and I wasn't disappointed.The over 800 pictures, which were taken by both professional photographers and ordinary people, are horrifying, moving, poetic, ironic, enraging..in other words, your response to them will run the full gamut of emotions, just as our emotions did on that fateful day.For better or for worse, this book can help you prepare to face the 1-year anniversary of 9/11 and every anniversary of it thereafter as a day we survived, cried and raged through and hopefully triumphed over as individuals and as a Nation. 9/11 is a part of our history, in all its horror and sorrow, so therefore I want to remember it as it was and that is why this book must have a place in my library and these images will join the other historic photo images of New York like those of Alfred Stieglitz, Jacob Rhys and Edward Steichen. Books: History262@blogcritics.org Tue, 27 Aug 2002 21:39:13 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/08/24/202554.php Jennie L. TaliaferroI've been a fan of Kathy Reich's since she began writing the fascinating Temperance Brennan series with her debut Déja Dead. Her books are all based on her own life as one of only 50 certified forensic anthropologists, a highly specialized discipline which involves much more training, knowledge, and research than any garden variety coroner.I assume that both Reichs (and the fictional Brennan) can "write her own ticket" (as well as books) in this career, because she divides her time and her duties between North Carolina and Montréal. In Grave Secrets,Temperance's work takes her even farther afield than usual, this time to the Guatemalan countryside to investigate the killings of villagers there who were killed during that country's 1982-1996 civil war, which Reich describes as "one of the bloodiest conflicts in Latin American history." While engaged in this "dig," Brennan gets called into lend her services to unearth the victims of a more recent killer in the big city, who may have killed as many as 4 missing young girls, one of whom is the daughter of a rich diplomat. There's some romantic interest to be found, even though Tempe's work takes her into the depths of a septic tank to find one of the victim's bodies. Riech has a nice narrative style and has the happy habit of giving enough detail about dead bodies to be interesting, but not so much that it's overly macabre or sickening (no small talent.) As this genre of mystery goes, it's a nice read and preferable to Patricia Cornwell's (her Kay Scarpetta is in a similiar line of work) latter books. Reich dedicated this book to the Guatemalans killed in the civil war and the victims of 9/11. Of them all, she said, " I have touched their bones. I mourn for them." so one can only surmise that she may have helped in a professional capacity to deal with our national tragedy. If so, bless her! 217@blogcritics.org Sat, 24 Aug 2002 20:25:54 EDT