Michael Cohen (1) (1943–)

Michael Cohen is a master of the great American essay. 'A Place to Read' is a silky flight into the wisdom of personal, as well as universally human, experience. From Odysseus to Milton, Bradbury to de Botton—Cohen’s sweeping and spacious reflections drew me into questions of being, mortality, and even the thrill of flight: “I wasn’t sad; I was exhilarated. I was going to learn to fly. I was sixty years old. What had taken me so long?” The pages cross the years and state lines, and for someone who knows something of his references to Odysseus yearning for Ithaca, the American settings held me—California, New Orleans, Kentucky, Arizona, Seattle, Missouri. Cohen writes, “The heart beats, as it should, in secret.” He does not walk with readers. He flies with them.… (mere)