Nina Berman’s Purple Hearts project is a series of photographs and interviews with American soldiers who were injured in Iraq. Her book, Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq, tells the story of twenty wounded servicemen and women. Berman will sign copies tonight from 6-8 at the Jen Bekman Gallery, where her photographs will remain on view through the end of August. . . .
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below critic and Observer columnist Chris Lehmann — who, like many people I know, holds strong ideas about what a bookstore should be — praises D.C.’s non-profit Books for America, while excoriating just about every other option in the city. Having never shopped . . .
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below Marco Romano praises Dove & Hudson of downtown Albany, New York. Dove & Hudson Old Books is located on a corner in what was once the heart of the residential section of one of Albany’s largest neighborhoods. Much of the area succumbed . . .
Week before last, the vivacious and quick-witted Aura Estrada died very suddenly after a swimming accident while on vacation with her husband, the novelist Francisco Goldman. I met her only once, the night of the Bolaño tribute, but her insights and stories and odd, lovely laugh have stayed with me since. Please read “Mi Aura,” a reminiscence Goldman wrote for . . .
In this photo, my other granddad, my dad’s father, stands just to the left of the shrimp mountain, sporting a bow tie and natty ’50s ‘do. The undated shot was taken at a Junior Chamber of Commerce Convention at Biloxi, Mississippi’s Buena Vista Hotel, which no longer exists. (Much larger version here.) Nowadays, at 89, Grandpa’s got a full head . . .