Richard Fluck, Author at bookscover2cover

5 min

Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II

Current events sometimes justify reviewing a book published years ago, especially if the book helps readers better understand their world today. Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich is such a book.

3 min

The Baghdad Eucharist

Iraqi novelist and poet Sinan Antoon's The Baghdad Eucharist is an unforgettable novel of memory, loss, love and diaspora. Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2013.

2 min

Rico Stays

Rico Stays is the final novel in Ed Duncan’s Pigeon-Blood Red trilogy. As he did in the other two books in the series, Pigeon-Blood Red and The Last Straw, Duncan…

7 min

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite

In 2011, the Korean American writer and teacher Suki Kim taught English to the sons of North Korea’s elite. This book explores her experiences there and, as she writes, “My goal was to write a book that humanizes North Koreans.”

6 min

Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir

Native Country of the Heart was the right book at the right time. It read like a personal letter from Cherríe Moraga to me, and I will be forever grateful…

2 min

Salt Houses

If you’ve ever built a sand castle in the intertidal zone at the ocean’s edge, you know what happens when the tide comes in: It washes away your castle, leaving not a trace of it except in your memory or a photograph.

The Last Straw

When Jeffrey Phillips, a poor teenager in Chicago, shoots and kills a man in a carjacking gone sideways, Sandra Yanders, a teen witness from “the other side of the tracks,”…

3 min

Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy

Sycophancy (ˈsikəˌfan(t)sē) is the phenomenon known to most of us by alternative words or phrases such as sucking up, ass kissing, brown nosing, and bootlicking—words and terms that give sycophancy…

Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939

As the son of a WW II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, I grew up hearing stories from my Dad about his personal experiences in the war. I picked up Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939 because I wanted to know more about Hitler the man: his roots, his formative years, his path to Führer, the choices he made along that path. "If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific."

7 min

The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

One of Di Giovanni’s themes in her book The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria is “the velocity of war,” the speed with which it descends upon a country, whether it be Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, or Syria. The book is based on Di Giovanni’s reporting from Syria during the six-month period, June–December 2012.

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