James Grippando, the Miami lawyer-turned-bestselling crime writer, used to be able to produce books faster than publishers could publish them. That’s no longer true, thanks to digital technology. But that doesn’t mean he’s slowed the pace. “It’s been more than a book a year for a while now,” says Grippando, who has two novels scheduled for the first half of this year, and an … [Read more...]
Our drug policy and its costs, scrupulously researched
The war on drugs has spawned more crime, violence, addiction and suffering — the exact opposite of what was intended. That is the theme of this provocative and timely book by British author Johann Hari, who spent three years researching the subject. In 1914, Congress banned the sale of heroin and cocaine, although doctors could continue to prescribe these drugs. But that … [Read more...]
At the Festival of the Arts Boca: Michael Grunwald on the unfinished business of the Everglades
Almost 10 years have passed since the publication of Michael Grunwald’s groundbreaking first book, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, which was greeted as the most important — and readable — book on the subject since Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s classic, River of Grass. But today Grunwald has one regret: Climate change. “There is climate change … [Read more...]
At Festival of the Arts Boca: Richard Ford returns with Frank, thanks to Sandy
The novelist and short story writer Richard Ford lives in Maine, with a small apartment in Harlem for the two days a week he teaches at Columbia University. So of course he’s looking forward to his visit to Boca Raton on Sunday — but not for the reasons you might expect. He’s more interested in spring training baseball than in escaping the brutal weather in the Northeast. “I’m … [Read more...]
Songwriter MacDonald evokes folk scene in credible first novel
Delray Beach-based author Rod MacDonald’s primary audience for his debut novel, The Open Mike, is likely to include many of the folks who have followed his primary career as a singer/songwriter. Considering that he got his musical start singing and playing guitar in Greenwich Village in the 1970s, where the book’s lead character (the similarly-named Reo MacGregor) does the … [Read more...]
Ex-NEA chief Gioia to highlight 11th Palm Beach Poetry Festival
To anyone who knows Miles Coon, the founder and director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, it should come as no surprise to learn that Coon starts off a phone conversation with a recitation of “A Lock of Her Hair,” by renowed American poet Robert Wrigley. Wrigley is one of the luminaries — including Chard deNiord, Linda Gregerson, Thomas Lux, Maurice Manning, Molly Peacock, … [Read more...]
‘Just Mercy’ chilling look at American injustice system
Just Mercy is timely in view of two recent cases in which grand juries declined to indict white policemen involved in the deaths of black suspects in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City. Bryan Stevenson has written a chilling book about miscarriages of justice in the criminal justice system, particularly when blacks are prosecuted. Descended from slaves, Stevenson grew up in a … [Read more...]
Health care too focused on repair, not happiness, physician says
Modern medicine excels at treating illness while it mostly sidesteps patients’ end-of-life fears and hopes, which is the theme of Being Mortal, a thoughtful new book by Harvard University surgeon and author Atul Gawande. “I learned a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them,” Gawande writes. “Our textbooks had almost nothing on aging or frailty or … [Read more...]
How Alzheimer’s robbed victim, healthy spouse of their lives
Harvey Gralnick was a 56-year-old esteemed doctor at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland when his wife and colleagues began noticing changes in his behavior -- forgetting things, getting lost, lashing out. A medical examination found nothing wrong, but two years later a physician suggested that Gralnick might be suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s. “I had never … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The season in books
After all these years, the literary events season in South Florida has long reached its maturity. No more jokes about “cultural wastelands,” and publishers still send writers here on the few publicity tours they pay for each year. Why? Because so many people here read books, talk about books, and attend literary festivities. It would be understandable if organizers of, say, … [Read more...]