Janet Levine

Janet Levine is a writer and teacher. Her publications include four books: Leela’s Gift; Lulu, a novel; Inside Apartheid, the political memoir of her activism in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa; and Know Your Parenting Personality. The Enneagram Intelligences, nominated for the Grawemeyer Education Award 2000, is considered a “classic” in Enneagram literature (there are several foreign editions as well).

Her latest work is Reading Matters: How Literature Influences Life. Her current project is a historical novel, Veld Fire, set in 1960, South Africa. A decades long freelance journalist, she has been published in the New York Times magazine, Boston Globe, The Yale Review, and many other publications. She is a residency fellow at the VCCA and the Hambidge Center and a member of the Authors' Guild. Currently, she teaches Literature and Philosophy at Milton Academy, Massachusetts.

Book Reviews by Janet Levine

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“Stella is not a lengthy book and can be read in several hours. But it packs a punch way beyond its weight.

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“Dalton has created a page-turning thriller with undertones of contemporaneous, serious, societal, and academic issues.” 

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“Wild Life is a page-turner with universal appeal, but a special gift for young girls and women, their brothers, and male acquaintances.”

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“The gift Bair gives us in Parisian Lives is a direct and knowing contemplation of the works of two literary giants—and the circumstances of their lives as they wrote.

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“If this book were an opera, De Robertis would be deafened by curtain call after curtain call after every performance.

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“Despite the seriousness of much of the content that the book hints at, this is a quick read for the last days of summer.”

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“Despite the richness of Cander’s prose, in The Weight of a Piano she crafts a novel that staggers somewhat under its own weight and the weight it carries of its alienated and ofte

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“Clearly, Cherise Wolas is not yet in the ranks of our foremost literary fiction writers—but she can be one day.

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“A stunning debut novel. The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas encompasses a wealth of superb writing, mature insights, and breathtaking risks . . .”

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Well known and adored by millions of readers worldwide, Chilean-American author, Isabel Allende with her 21st novel In the Midst of Winter will please multitudes of her fans and also leave

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“Sacrificed places Chanette Paul among the classiest thriller writers of our day.”

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“Clemmons’ voice is natural and appealing . . . and . . . what she is telling us is powerfully poignant and emotional, even at times, devastatingly resonant. . . .

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“As Bauer writes the fight against Boko Haram is far from over. His final sentence encapsulates Nigeria’s nightmare: ‘We have fear. We have hope.’”

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“All the twists and turns and deliberate obfuscation of characters names and identities and piled on bizarre coincidences in overly descriptive scenes, only add to the Byzantian complexity

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“. . . introduces Millay as a fascinating personality. . . . an iconic American female (and feminist) poet . . . and the book enhances details of her life long overlooked.”

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“Andrew Wyeth’s vision of her in the painting returns to Christina her sense of self, for she knows that through this painting she will be truly seen.”

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“This book is a breath of fresh air.”

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“Hovitz had the grit, determination and resources to pull herself out of the morass of PTSD. What about the rest of her generation growing up in this post-September 11 world?”

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“Over 300 years the forests are raped, eco-systems destroyed, wealth generated, and the insatiable international desire and greed for wood exploited.”

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“Relativity is a wonderful read . . .

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“Rublack creates an astute and informative study of witchcraft and witch trials.”

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“The novel is a quick, compulsive read but leaves much untold; however, this is fiction and not comprehensive biography.”

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“In the novel the protagonists are filmmakers, women who know how to create illusions through a camera lens and peddle them as reality.

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More Was Lost is a memoir of two parts; the first reads like a fairy tale and the second like a nightmare.”

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“a well-written, family memoir that tackles broad questions of identity . . .”

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“A satisfying read on many levels . . .” 

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“The Price of Salt is a moving, beautifully conceived and written book. It is a mesmerizing read.”

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“In this intricate and intimate journey Rita Gabis brings macrocosmic Holocaust horror into the microcosm of our dining rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms—a noble feat, one you will not soon for

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“Decisive two thumbs up for a compelling and lucid narrative of the ‘finest book in the world.’”

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Primates is a single-season sensation that does little more than titillate.”

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Mia Couto is a prize-winning writer living in Maputo, Mozambique, where he practices as a biologist. He writes in Portuguese and is well known in Portuguese speaking literary circles.

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Africa Uprising is a book for political scientists by political scientists Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly.

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This is a superb novel: luminous and illuminating. You’ll gallop through every page and then read it again. British author Sarah Hall is a writer’s writer . . . as well as a reader’s best friend.

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In Searching for Wallenberg author Alan Lelchuk chooses to work in the well-worn structure of a novel within a novel.

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“Khadra’s didacticism ruins this book and leaves the novel bereft of his previously demonstrated literary power.”

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“For about the last ten years British writing has been experiencing a remarkable renaissance in literary fiction. Long may this movement flourish.

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“Bausch rushes us to a conclusion that is neither convincing nor artistic. He lost his way.”

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“In The Orpheus Descent, Harper uses his novelist’s skills to plausibly recreate time and place—his settings in ancient Italy and Greece are strong—as are his characters, including

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The Heiresses by Sara Shepard is bad—bad, bad, bad, about as bad as any novel I’ve ever not read beyond the first two or three pages.”

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“The writing is weak. Somewhere amid the tangle of words and images is the potential for a novel, but not in this fictional effort.”

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For the past 30 years I have taught at a fairly large New England prep school in the Boston suburbs with an internationally diverse student body—co-ed—and both a boarding and day population.

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“Stay, Illusion! is not a graceful gavotte but a gallop through the fields of thought . . .”

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“We are in Julie Kavanagh’s debt for shining a light on this woman almost forgotten in the dust of history, allowing her legend to endure.”

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“But this narrative, a story of family domesticity and femininity—desires, wiles, superstitions—is light fare for a historical novel that delves into the philosophical ferment of Socrates,’ Plato’s

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“Such is the importance of Dr. Brazelton’s work that this sensitive memoir fills a gap as to the theoretical and practical roots of contemporary child raising practice.”