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‘Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl’

Reginald Harris Lamda Literary
This new memoir by pop culture and music critic Rashod Ollison is about growing up with rhythm and blues, and, writes reviewer Reginald Harris, "about the role of music in the lives of everyday music lovers, as both a consolation and a vision of a possible different future." Ollison writes about coming of age, coming to terms with his sexuality, and about what his early twin loves, literature and music, taught him.

Interest in New Noam Chomsky Documentary Has Grown So Large That Even the NY Times Ran a Review—and Praised It!

Alexandra Rosenmann AlterNet
The New York Times, which historically tends to ignore Chomsky, ran a prominent review in its Arts section, going so far as to praise the film and calling Requiem a "well-paced and cogent seminar." Reviewer Daniel Gold writes, "citing Aristotle, Adam Smith and James Madison, among others, he melds history, philosophy and ideology into a sobering vision of a society in an accelerating decline.

The Robin Hood of Leftovers

Anna Roth Civil Eats
The New York-based nonprofit, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, has recruited thousands of volunteers to help it work with organizations that have leftover food for institutions like homeless shelters and food pantries. The organization has “rescued” and donated 290,000 pounds of food since it started in late 2012.

The Calving Age

Kirk Glaser Sand Hill Review
Climate change; glacial melting: Northern California poet Kirk Glaser depicts what's already happening, forecasts where we're all heading.

Red Rosa: Beyond the Biopic

John W. W. Zeiser Los Angeles Review of Books
Hardly a comic book and without the obesseive psychologizing common to many biographies and biopics, the work under review portrays the subject, the martyred German revolutionary marxist Rosa Luxemburg, with a vividness and drama that engrosses the reader even as it explains and elucidates a cogent political worldview that was for too long relatively foreign to the American left.

Film Review: The Brilliance of 'Birth of a Nation"

Eric Kohn Iniiewire
After premiering to prolonged standing ovations and plenty of critical acclaim, the slave revolt drama, Birth of a Nation, set off the fiercest bidding war Sundance has ever seen. Fox Searchlight has come out on top, landing the drama in a record-breaking $17.5 million deal, the biggest purchase in Sundance history.

Homeland Withdrawal? This Series From Norway Is Your New Favorite Geopolitical Thriller

JACOB BROWN Vogue
In a not-so-distant future, Norway has elected a radical branch of the Green Party, and its charismatic new prime minister shuts down the country’s supply of oil and gas to continental Europe. Despite an impending climate crisis, the EU is none too pleased with this overnight weaning from petrol, and invites Russia to offer Norway “technical assistance” in restoring its fossil fuel production. Russian gunships descend on Norway’s oil platforms.

Barbed Wire

Nathan Hoks Matter: A (somewhat) monthly journal of political poetry and commentary
Chicago poet Nathan Hoks shows a keen understanding of bad things going on in our times and then takes it all a surreal step beyond or maybe not.