Book Reviews Archive
Review: WHAT COUNTS AS LOVE by Marian Crotty
Marian Crotty’s superb short story collection, What Counts as Love, won the 2017 John Simmons Short Fiction Award, judged by Andre Dubus III.
Review: DAYLILY CALLED IT A DANGEROUS MOMENT by Alessandra Lynch
Lynch’s radiant lyricism throughout the collection expresses the post-traumatic tension of persistent remembering and forgetting rape. Read as poetry of witness, the collection is illuminating, for trauma survivors and for those willing to behold its aftermath.
Must Reads for Fall
The weather is turning, and books—as always—will bring us steadily through to the end of the year. Here are our choices for this fall's best reads.
Review: WHY BUDDHISM IS TRUE: THE SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF MEDITATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT by Robert Wright
He’s not even arguing that Buddhism is true.
The Best Short Story I Read This Month: “Missing Things” by Edwin Madu
Every word carries with it a connotative meaning, a definition that stretches beyond what can be found in the dictionary. Edwin Madu uses this notion to his advantage in his short story “Missing Things” published by Okey-Panky in July of this year.
Three Chapbooks That Marry the Written Word and Visual Art
Chapbooks that combine the work of a writer with that of a visual artist are rarer than, perhaps, they should be. There’s something special about flipping open a chapbook to find art within its pages as well.
Review: ON WALKING ON by Cole Swensen
Imagine an anthology of the literature of walking, with examples ranging from the Middle Ages to the present. Now imagine a book containing only commentaries on these ruminations on walking, without the accompaniment of the texts that inspired them.
Review: SURPASSING CERTAINTY: WHAT MY TWENTIES TAUGHT ME by Janet Mock
A constant theme of the book is Mock’s profound isolation, reinforced by her “stealth” status, “wearing that cloak of normalcy” where she is seen as a cisgender woman.
Review: LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng
The novel opens with Elena Richardson watching her home burn down, and readers backtrack the circumstances leading to an act of arson.
Chapbook Round-Up: Titles from Cincinnati’s Porkbelly Press
Porkbelly Press is a Cincinnati-based press that puts out chapbooks and micro-chapbooks as well as a literary magazines and anthologies.