Book Reviews Archive
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee
Lee is clearly wary of the limits of language. Perhaps this is why his language in this collection is so syncretic, so wildly alive and allusive with references to anime, science fiction, the Hebrew Bible, Gnosticism, Shakespeare, and hip hop.
The Driest Season by Meghan Kenny
Falling into this book and living completely in its world for a day or two may be just the right way to read it.
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
Feel Free is an excellent place to find one of the best contemporary writers writing at her best.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Accused of a crime he didn’t commit, Roy is sent to prison after he and his wife Celestial have been married for less than two years.
A Gift from Darkness by Patience Ibrahim and Andrea C. Hoffman
A Gift from Darkness: How I Escaped with my Daughter from Boko Haram is a powerful and moving tale of female resilience. Patience Ibrahim, who was kidnapped by Boko Haram twice, tells her survival tale to Andrea C. Hoffman, journalist and author of The Girl Who Beat ISIS.
Review: MEMORY LANDS by Christine M. DeLucia and OUR BELOVED KIN by Lisa Brooks
We might consider that, in twenty-first century America, we continue to live in the shadows of King Philip’s War. Both DeLucia and Brooks have given us important new frameworks through which to explore the wider nature of those shadows.
Review: THE LIVING INFINITE by Chantel Acevedo
What illuminates Acevedo’s writing is how she weaves historical fact into a story that feels prescient in the contemporary cultural conversation.
Review: SARAJEVO ROSES by Rory Waterman
Sarajevo Roses is a volume packed with journeys, but this is a poet who attends to the enduring as well as the transient, he constructs gritty, unsentimental pastorals in the noble peasant tradition of Clare, Hardy, Edward Thomas and Robert Frost.
Review: NOMADLAND by Jessica Bruder
Through folk meet-ups and underground websites, Amazon seasonal packing facilities and middle American ghost towns, Bruder’s book peers into the heart of the modern American housing crisis and lifts the curtain on the forgotten multitudes hiding in plain sight.
Review: TALES OF TWO AMERICAS edited by John Freeman
Tale of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation Edited by John Freeman Penguin; Sept 2017 252 pp; $17 Buy: paperback | eBook Reviewed by Anne Kniggendorf In his collection of 36 essays, poems, and stories entitled Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided