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Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq exhibition & signing

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. . . .

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Chris Lehmann on Washington, D.C.’s Books for America

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 . . .

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Marco Romano on Albany’s Dove & Hudson

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 . . .

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R.I.P. Aura Estrada

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 . . .

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