The Softer Sex

By Jeannette Cooperman

Somewhere between cottagecore and the hardcore expectations of the work world, there is an invisible fulcrum on which we wobble. Why is it our fault that softness automatically equates to fluttered-lashes femininity?

Uncategorized | Dispatches

The Authentic Imposter

By Jeannette Cooperman

The first woman to paint the official portrait of a U.S. president, Greta Kempton also painted Cabinet officials, governors, senators, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, two Postmasters General, a Supreme Court justice, several university presidents, and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. But what would have happened if she had painted a self-portrait?

Essays

A Star is Born . . . And Self-Made 

By Gerald Early

In the end, what is clear is that all autobiographers are, alas and inevitably, the heroes or heroines of their own text. As every reader should know, every autobiography, in its own way, subtle or blatant, settles the scores it needs to settle while disguising its subject’s insecurities.

Reviews

Black Films of the 1970s Were Something Else

By Zachary Manditch-Prottas

Josiah Howard’s unapologetic, often charming, fondness for Blaxploitation is both the book’s best asset and its greatest limitation. The book gives the films their due, yet, at times feels overly compensative in its efforts.

Reviews

The Triumphs and Defeats of the Woman King

By Kyle R. King

All In sets a new standard for the heights that an athlete’s memoir can reach, while simultaneously modeling a robust role for the engaged athlete in society.

Reviews

The Short, Troubled Lives of Two Russian Geniuses

By John Griswold

The reason for being of the book, and one of its dramatic thrills, is that these two friends not only did not fall to the wayside but have endured. They also both pointed the way to the future.

Reviews

An Atheist and an Agnostic Walk Into a Bar….

By Jeannette Cooperman

If I am searching for meaning, I am less likely to tumble into hedonism or overvalue stuff and money or use people for my own ends.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

The Mystery of Christmas Revealed!

By Gerald Early

Michael P. Foley’s Why We Kiss Under the Mistletoe is not a history of Christmas but rather a series of chapters broken into vignettes, anecdotes, and historical tidbits about the holiday, ranging from food and drink associated with Christmas to St. Nicholas’s partners, and other saints who also were gift-givers. All of this is written in a highly accessible way that will surely charm or at least entertain a reader in the same way that a book like One Hundred Amazing Facts About, well, whatever might be a pleasant diversion, even as the book tries to remind the faithful that Christmas is no mere diversion, but about God’s engagement with the world or God’s willingness to engage human creation, which is worth taking seriously even for those who do not take this particular story seriously or do not take belief in God seriously.

Reviews

Holy Daze

By Jeannette Cooperman

I make my festive announcement. And then I hear myself. Holy days. What they were supposed to be in the first place. And with that, everything clicks into place.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Why We Hate the Poor

By Jeannette Cooperman

Those who do not have the most basic shelter and sustenance remind us how easily we could lose our own comfort. They remind us that mental illness and addiction can scramble the brains we rely on to succeed. They remind us that existence is precarious at its core.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Skip to content