内容摘要：on Fox Nation marking the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park. He’s back as an executive producer, host and narrator of a three-episode sequel called “Yellowstone to Yosemite with Kevin Costner.” The Oscar winner retraces Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir’s Yosemite exposition, which helped to inspire Roosevelt’s conservation efforts. It premieres Saturday, Feb. 8.

on Fox Nation marking the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park. He’s back as an executive producer, host and narrator of a three-episode sequel called “Yellowstone to Yosemite with Kevin Costner.” The Oscar winner retraces Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir’s Yosemite exposition, which helped to inspire Roosevelt’s conservation efforts. It premieres Saturday, Feb. 8.

Russo scholars — there must be some in American literature departments somewhere, right? — will devour this book. Russo writes lovingly of both his father and mother, draws explicit connections between his characters and people from his real life, takes a road trip back to his hometown Gloversville, and even throws in an homage towhose portrayal of Sully in his “Nobody’s Fool” helped Russo’s work find an audience well beyond readers.

The 12 essays here are divided into the two parts noted in the title. “Life” is more memoir, with Russo sharing what he did during theamong many other things. “I’d been waiting for more than a decade… for somebody to tell me to go home and stay there, and somebody finally had.” The first half is stuffed with stories about his mother and father, anchored by “Marriage Story,” which reveals the illnesses they both suffered (gambling and alcoholism for Dad, anxiety for Mom) and how the dream life his mother envisioned after her husband survived World War II never materialized (“She and my father stalled.”). But Russo doesn’t write to assign blame. At age 75 and with both parents buried, he takes a more thoughtful approach in these essays. Not yet a teenager when Dad left, he realizes now that Mom was just doing what he does for a living as a storyteller — controlling the narrative.Aspiring writers should appreciate the advice Russo doles out in these pages. He credits his childhood and the people who loved him as his “greatest strength” — “Like Faulkner, I’d been gifted the perfect lens through which to view America” — and tells would-be authors, “No matter how gifted you are, or how hardworking, you’re never going to be any good until you know who and what you love, because until then you won’t know who you are.”

The second half of the collection — “Art” — is a more acquired taste, with an essay about writing movies and TV shows vs. books, as well as a rather odd one that finds life lessons in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. There’s another that heaps praise on the specific word choices contained in the lyrics to the 1972 Townes Van Zandt song “Pancho and Lefty,” and another that finds echoes of society’s reaction toin a scene from “The Maltese Falcon.” Considered all together, readers can judge if the essays, like the collection’s title, truly inform each other, or if it’s enough to simply enjoy these snippets before Russo graces the world with another novel.

published a novel in the U.S. called “The Spinning Heart” about a rural Irish town after the 2008 financial collapse. It was narrated by a chorus of voices, one per chapter, and at the center was a good-hearted contractor, Bobby Mahon.

Ryan’s latest book is a spellbinding sequel, “Heart, Be at Peace,” that works just fine on its own. It chronicles the changes that have buffeted Nenagh, County Tipperary, in the decade since the recession. Once again, the story is told by 21 townspeople, including one who has died, and Bobby is at the center.Isha Len, a migrant of Cameroon, poses for a photo in Panama City, Monday, March 10, 2025, after being deported from the U.S., detained for weeks in a Panamanian immigration camp, and released on a temporary humanitarian visa allowing a 30‑day stay. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Isha Len, a migrant of Cameroon, poses for a photo in Panama City, Monday, March 10, 2025, after being deported from the U.S., detained for weeks in a Panamanian immigration camp, and released on a temporary humanitarian visa allowing a 30‑day stay. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)After conflict broke out in her small town, Len crossed Cameroon by car and minibus, then a fisherman friend carried her four hours by boat to Nigeria.

Len, a schoolteacher, flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she said authorities detained her for a month in the airport. From there, she wound north through South America by bus, following other migrants until they reached the Darién Gap.She walked days through the dangerous jungle that divides Colombia and Panama before boarding buses that carried her through Central America. After being kidnapped for days by a gang in Guatemala, she crossed into southern Mexico, where she took a boat along the Pacific coast to evade authorities. After she landed, she rode eight hours to Mexico City, continuing on by bus and car to Tijuana.