Growing up in wealthy Greenwich, Conn., Adam Braun developed an “obsession” with Wall Street and dreamed of “becoming a billionaire. While in college he traveled abroad in the Semester at Sea program, which introduces students to different cultures. Braun decided to ask children he encountered in each nation what they would choose if they could have anything in the world. In … [Read more...]
‘Sixth Extinction’ is an urgent, chilling warning
More than 60 million years ago a 6-mile-wide asteroid crashed into Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. Four other mass extinctions in the past 450 million years destroyed countless other animal and plant species. In her profound new book, The Sixth Extinction, science writer Elizabeth Kolbert argues that Earth could be heading for another extinction that would kill off many … [Read more...]
Historian Goodwin takes audience back to Progressive Era
By Dale King Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin doesn’t just talk about history. She takes her audience on a word picture journey through time, giving wings to funny facts and deep insight into many of this nation’s presidents. Her lecture Thursday night at the Mizner Park Amphitheater in Boca Raton, part of Festival of the Arts Boca, touched on her latest … [Read more...]
T.D. Allman: Looking feistily at Florida, past and future
T. D. Allman, a raconteur of rare qualities, begins a telephone interview with a story about his dad. An officer in the Coast Guard sailing patrols out of Tampa during World War II, Allman’s father captured an Italian tanker on its way north from Venezuela. “Of course, the Italians were delighted to surrender,” Allman says. “He let them keep their sidearms, but he took the … [Read more...]
Kidd’s ‘Invention of Wings’ compelling tale of slave era
From the opening pages of this engaging novel, Sue Monk Kidd grabs the reader’s attention with her compelling portrait of a slave-owning family in Charleston, S.C. The well-told story begins with the white parents giving their daughter Sarah her own slave as a present on her 11th birthday. Rebellious Sarah wants nothing to do with slavery, but the parents insist. The … [Read more...]
‘Echo Spring’ probes alcohol as source of inspiration, tragedy
It is almost a cliché that famous writers and alcohol go together. In this important new book English author Olivia Laing focuses on six prominent American writers who struggled with alcoholism — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Cheever, John Berryman and Raymond Carver. Laing grew up in an alcoholic family, which partly explains her intense … [Read more...]
10 years on, Palm Beach Poetry Festival keeps delivering
“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years,” says Miles Coon from his home in Delray Beach. “Well, I can and I can’t.” Coon, founder of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, likes to say that poetry “is the most human form of expression and spans all cultures and eras.” And for a decade, he’s been running a week of literary activity that shows just what that means. Beginning Monday, the … [Read more...]
‘Malala’ a powerful story of crime, recovery and faith in ideas
Many will recall the electrifying speech delivered last summer at the United Nations by a 16-year-old Pakistani girl who had been shot by the Taliban. Her crime? She had publicly advocated education for girls at a time when the Taliban was burning down schools and threatening girls and teachers. I Am Malala offers a gripping account of that awful day when a Taliban fanatic … [Read more...]
Despite brutality, ex-Somali captive inclines toward forgiveness
Amanda Lindhout was 27 when she and a male friend were captured in Somalia by Muslim extremists who then demanded $2 million in ransom. Lindhout, a novice writer / photographer from Canada, and Nigel Brennan, an Australian photographer, were held hostage under horrid conditions for 460 days. Soldiers raped, starved and tortured Lindhout, who dreamed of an imaginary “house in … [Read more...]
For grieving daughter, modern medicine was the villain
Eleven years ago, doctors told retired Wesleyan University professor Jeffrey Butler that he needed a pacemaker to ensure that his heart did not stop during hernia surgery. So he was outfitted with the device, which kept his heart going, “while doing nothing to prevent his slide into dementia, incontinence, near-muteness, misery and helplessness.” A year earlier, Butler had … [Read more...]