Lush Life by Richard Price

In his latest novel, “Lush Life,” Richard Price puts his myriad gifts together to create his most powerful and galvanic work yet, a novel that showcases his sympathy and his street cred and all his skills as a novelist and screenwriter: his gritty-lyrical prose, his cinematic sense of pacing, his uncanny knowledge of the nooks and crannies of his characters’ hearts.

“Lush Life” is a novel that gives us a wide, 3-D Imax portrait of a small corner of New York City (the Lower East Side of a few years ago, at that hinge point in time, when young hipsters were beginning to push out the immigrants and the working poor), a novel that captures Manhattan’s magnetic appeal to dreamers and drifters, and its ability to crush the weak and unlucky and turn their dreams into disappointment and rage.

Dreams and Shadows by Robin Wright

In describing the struggles of people from Morocco to Iran to reform or replace existing regimes Robin Wright draws on three decades of experience in covering the region for The Washington Post and other newspapers.Opening on an optimistic note, Wright describes how in 1983 she stood across the street from the ruins of the United States Embassy in Beirut after more than 60 Americans had been killed by a suicide bomber. At that time, she recalls, it seemed that Islamic fundamentalists had the initiative and were shaping the future of the region. “Yet a generation later,” she writes, “Islamic extremism is no longer the most important, interesting or dynamic force in the Middle East.”

It would be good if this were true, but in general the stories Wright relates of brave reformers battling for human and civil rights show them as having had depressingly small influence.

The Sociopath

Can you imagine running into a sociopath? Most of us don’t because we usually assume that everyone has a conscious. Not the sociopath…more on this later.

Iran to Boycott Paris Book Fair

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran said on Saturday it is boycotting this year’s Paris book fair in protest at Israel being invited as guest of honour, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has participated in previous fairs but this year because of France’s decision Iran is boycotting the fair,” said Ali Alipour, an official at the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance.

Iran does not recognise Israel and has sharpened its rhetoric against it during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian president has provoked international outrage by repeatedly predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear and he has courted more controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust.

Several Arab and Muslim countries and writers’ associations have said they will stay away from the March 14-19 Paris book fair after organisers announced that 39 Israeli writers were being invited to mark the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state.

On Tuesday the 50-nation Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISECSCO), called for a boycott of the event by Muslim states.