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Archives for February 2014

Still Relevant? A Talk with a Librarian

February 23, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-23-CyndeLahey2-thumbCynde Bloom Lahey began working in a library during high school. She received a Master’s Degree in Library Science from Southern Connecticut University in 1989 and has been a librarian throughout her professional life. She is now Programming Specialist at the Norwalk Public Library.

What changes have you seen in libraries over the last few years?
When I first became a librarian, we had a manual circulation system. Technology has changed everything and made things much easier in so many ways. There are myths about libraries no longer being warehouses of books, and librarians will have to find different ways of staying relevant. Historically, libraries have always been a cultural community center for people. Now, because of technology, the roles of libraries have expanded exponentially.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

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Filed Under: About Books Tagged With: AARP, art exhibits, author appearances, book discussions, book groups, community center, computer classes, concerts, DCs, downloadable content, DVDs, information resources, instruction centers, job search seminars, librarians, librarians on loan, libraries, tax forms, theatrical performances, workshops

“I Have Forty Paid Enemies”

February 19, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-26-restaurant2-thumbHell would freeze over before I’d do any cooking back then—especially since I lived alone in Manhattan. So I ate out every night.

I got to be friendly with some restaurateurs. One in particular, Jerry, owned a fancy steak house. Jerry was always ready with a handshake and a slap on the back. I was a “regular” who hunkered down on New York strip steak at least twice a week. Jerry usually comped me a glass of wine or an after-dinner drink. You see, Jerry was a great guy—and he was “connected”

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

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Filed Under: crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein Tagged With: bartender scams, larceny, mafia, restaurant scams, restauranteurs, steakhouses, steaks, stealing, theft

Plugged In and Feeling the Fiction

February 18, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Imagine wearing a vest-like device while reading a book, so that when you come upon a scene brimming with heart-racing tension, the vest emits vibrations to increase your heart rate and compresses your ribcage to convey the tightness felt by the protagonist in the throes of his peril.

Sounds like the stuff of science-fiction, but it is not.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

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Filed Under: About Books Tagged With: amygdala, brain chemistry, feeling states, fiction, lust, novels, rage, sexual feelings, word pictures

A Shot in the Dark

February 15, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

It was 5:00 PM on a cold winter evening. I’d testified at a Workers’ Compensation hearing and was walking toward my car with an attorney. We were the only two people on a lonely, narrow street. The stores were shuttered. The neighborhood was in a devastated section of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Suddenly, coming from across the street and down the block, we heard the cracks of two shots from a small-caliber pistol.

Read more on Psychology Today >>

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Filed Under: Mark Rubinstein, Psychology Today Columns Tagged With: gun shots. holdup, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, psychiatric discorder, surgery

Storytelling Makes Us Who We Are, Novelist Tells Rotarians: Article in the Westport Minuteman

February 14, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Mark Rubinstein (Contributed photo)

Mark Rubinstein (Contributed photo)

“I always wanted to be a writer,” retired forensic psychiatrist Mark Rubinstein told Westport Sunrise Rotary last Friday. “People were telling me stories all the time … that’s partially why I went into psychiatry.”

Now he’s the storyteller, enjoying his second career, recalling 42 years of “listening to people’s tales of woe,” and working on his fifth novel.

Storytelling, he said, “makes us who we are … the novelist seeks to capture the reader, to take him from his prosaic world to one that gives him an experience he couldn’t hope to have in his daily life.”

Rubinstein spoke to his audience about his practice, about his genre, thrillers, and about writing.

Read more on The Minuteman News Center >>

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Filed Under: About Books, doctor, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: Love Gone Mad, Murder, Novelist, psychiatrist, storytelling, suspense, thrillers, writing

Silence Once Begun: A Conversation with Jesse Ball

February 10, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-10-JesseBall-thumbJesse Ball’s new novel Silence Once Begun has just been released by Pantheon. His three previous novels are The Way Through Doors, Samedi the Deafness, and Curfew. He’s also written several works of verse. He won the 2008 Paris Review Plimpton Prize and is the recipient of a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. He teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA Writing Program.

Silence Once Begun concerns a Japanese fishing village where eight elderly residents have disappeared. Although he didn’t commit a crime, Oda Sotatsu signs a written confession prepared by Sato Kakuzo. He’s arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death, yet remains inexplicably silent throughout this ordeal. The novel is written as a series of transcripts of interviews with those who knew Oda, providing different versions of what may have happened.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, On Writing Tagged With: Art Institute of Chicago's MFA Writing Program, Conrad, Curfew, dreams, fiction, hopes, investigate, japan, Japanese fishing village, Japanese justice system, Jesse Ball, Justice, Kafka, lies, lucid dreaming, lying, National Endowment for the Arts, novel, Paris Review, perceptions, Plimpton Prize, poetry, rules, Samedi the Deafness, The Secret Agent, The Way Through Doors, trust, truth-telling

Review of “The Foot Soldier”

February 6, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

The Foot SoldierREVIEW OF “THE FOOT SOLDIER”

I admit, I initially picked this book to read thinking it would serve as an “easy” read in-between all the non-fiction on my reading list. I’m a bit of a war fanatic in the sense that I appreciate reading war materials, come from a military family that has served in several wars, and have worked with veterans. Still, I’ve never been in a war. So when I come across something like Mark Rubinstein’s “The Foot Soldier,” where he is able to take the reader inside of a war, inside of a humid jungle full of mosquitoes and predators and booby traps and probably most of all fear, I’m beyond captivated. Though it was a short read–less than an hour–I felt the pain of young Costa every step of the way, especially to the heart-breaking decision at the end. There are choices we have to make in our lives that are so mind-blowing, we can’t even comprehend them at that second. I think no one knows the meaning of that sentence better than the men serving in our forces, the ones who make hard choices every single day. So–was this the best book about war I’ve ever read? No. Was the ending the best it could have been? Not really. But did it grip me emotionally? Absolutely. I nearly choked trying to hold back tears while reading certain passages. My body tensed up subconsciously as I read with a fast pace about Costa’s journey serving “point.”I’m done with the book and my nerves are frayed, my thoughts are scattered, and I’m anything but calm. That’s what makes a good story.

Chelsea Woodring
Net Galley Reviewer

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Filed Under: About Books, war Tagged With: atrocities, booby traps, combat, jungle, moral choice, predators, soldiers, Vietnam, war

A Good Story is Disturbing

February 4, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-03-disturbing2-thumbAs David Mamet told me, “If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad’s not dead, and asks him how school was, it’s boring.”

As a psychiatrist and novelist, I’m aware that all good stories are disturbing. No matter how beautifully written or “literary,” a novel resonates deeply because the storyline tugs powerfully at us. It upsets, confounds and presents chaos, conflict, imbalance and upheaval — either within its character’s mind or circumstances.

As readers, we crave instability, disturbance, and uncertainty. They make us care about the characters and the outcome. We live vicariously through the anguish, turmoil and trouble the characters endure in a quest to reorder chaos — the disequilibrium — propelling the story.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: books, Books news, Cinderella, Conflict, David Mamet, David Morrell, Disturbance, fear, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hamlet, Harlan Coben, Ian McEwan, Jane Hamilton, Janet Evonovic, John Irving, John Updike, Lisa Gardner, Philip Roth, Snow White, Stephen King, The Illiad, The Odyssey

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