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Dec 14, 2024 | 
elpais.com | Mariano Sigman
El cuentero Héctor Urién narra cada martes una de las mil y una noches, y cuando ya va terminando el relato recuerda al público que Adolf Hitler quiso ser pintor, que Stalin iba para poeta, que Francisco Franco quiso ser actor y Vladímir Putin, músico. Solo ahí pasa la gorra para juntar algunas monedas mientras espeta una amenaza: ya saben, no frustren al artista. Aquí sugiero (un poco en broma) que deberíamos tomarnos esta advertencia en serio.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
almendron.com | Mariano Sigman
En la tragedia aflora lo mejor y lo peor de la condición humana. Hemos visto en estos días un despliegue conmovedor de solidaridad y bondad, hordas de gente que caminan con lo que tienen, pico y pala, ropa y comida y sobre todo esperanza para dar todo a cambio de nada. Otras que improvisan un centro de cuidados para acompañar y sanar a una persona con una fractura de fémur.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
elpais.com | Mariano Sigman
La tragedia nos deja en un estado de conmoción y desolación en el que aflora lo mejor de la condición humana. En la adversidad surge un despliegue conmovedor de solidaridad y bondad, hordas de gente que caminan con lo que tienen, pico y pala, ropa y comida y sobre todo esperanza para dar todo a cambio de nada y otras que improvisan un centro de cuidados para acompañar y sanar a una persona con una fractura de fémur.
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Aug 30, 2024 | 
elpais.com | Mariano Sigman
Me encuentro a Carlos Páez en un desayuno en México. Llega en traje de baño azul con un estampado de veleros, una camiseta Lacoste negra, gafas de sol, un rosario vasco colgado del cuello y una cruz alargada que le cubre una buena parte del bíceps que acaba de tatuarse en Playa del Carmen. El sobreviviente de la tragedia de los Andes dice que no ve la cruz como símbolo de lo tachado y de la muerte, sino de las aspas del helicóptero que le dio la bienvenida a la vida.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Abi Maxwell |Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson
Abi Maxwell. Knopf, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593-53584-4 “I’d felt detached from my body as far back as I could remember,” writes novelist Maxwell (The Lake People) in the opening paragraphs of this captivating family memoir. From there, she unspools the story of her trans daughter, Greta, who was born after Maxwell and her husband settled down in Gilford, the conservative New Hampshire lake town where Maxwell grew up. At age six, Greta began asking to wear pink sneakers and dresses.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie
Comforting Myths: Concerning the Political in Art In this trenchant treatise, Lebanese American novelist Alameddine (The Wrong End of the Telescope) pushes back against the argument that “art should be separate from politics.” He contends that all art is political and that writing only appears apolitical if it “reinforces the dominant society’s values.” For instance, Alameddine argues that John Updike’s decision to write about “stultifying suburbia” at the height of the Vietnam War should be...
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Aug 26, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Albert Lee |Don Lemon |Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman
Don Lemon. Little, Brown, $30 (224p) ISBN 978-0-316-56769-5Lemon’s intriguing if unfocused latest (after This Is the Fire) finds the former CNN anchor linking his relationship to Christianity with his recent professional struggles. He opens with an account of his religious upbringing in Louisiana, which offered both a sense of community and the indignity of hearing homosexuality regularly degraded as he struggled with being in the closet.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie
David Graeber. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-0-374-61022-7This brilliant posthumous collection of essays by, and interviews with, anthropologist Graeber (The Dawn of Everything) serves as a revealing portrait of Graeber himself. In the interviews, he discusses his childhood as the son of lefty radicals, his teenage political coming-of-age, and his transformation into a public intellectual during the 2008 Occupy protests.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson |Andrea Currie
Justene Hill Edwards. Norton, $29.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-324-07385-7America’s racial wealth gap can be traced to the collapse of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company in 1874, according to this ingenious work of financial sleuthing.
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Emily Witt |Brenda Wineapple |Mariano Sigman |Aaron Robertson
Emily Witt. Pantheon, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-0-593-31764-8New Yorker staff writer Witt (Nollywood) delivers an arresting memoir rife with techno music, drugs, and the blush of new romance. In 2013, after quitting antidepressants, Witt decided to try “as many psychedelic drugs as possible,” her curiosity piqued by shifting social attitudes toward the substances.
