Can’t Handle the Truth!: Colleen Hoover- “Verity”

The cover for “Verity” diverges chromatically from other books following Colleen Hoover’s young adult romance formula. Can you pick it out? Among bright explosive splashes of emotion, it’s the dark one. And so that’s the Collen Hoover novel I chose to give the phenomenon a chance. I try to give any significant writer a try, …

Pissarro World : Alice Hoffman – “The Marriage of Opposites”

Camille Pissarro was the honorably bearded elder statesman overseeing the Impressionist movement through its eight major exhibitions from 1876 to 1884. He counseled practically every French exponent of the movement (and its Post-Impressionist aftermath) as well as selected foreigners - such as Vincent Van Gogh. Presumably, Parisian galleries would have been left poorer without his …

The Time of the Cathedrals : Victor Hugo, “Notre-Dame de Paris”

Esmeralda shouldn't be so spectacularly attractive. After all, Victor Hugo tells us how pretty she is again and again, which is enough to make us suspicious. It's just like hearing a car dealer go on about some beaut he seems desperate to get rid of, and we know that (Disney adaptations be-damned) Victor Hugo definitely …