Book Reviews Archive
My Dress Hangs There: Three Chapbooks Addressing Femininity, Reviewed
These three poetry chapbooks address aspects of femininity, though a variety of other themes (sometimes related to femininity, other times by its side) abound in each—love, lust, heroism, art, to name a few.
Review: STOMACHS by Luna Miguel (Translated by Luis Silva)
There are times for sadness and severity and all things bleak, and what do we do then? Luna Miguel might not have solutions but Stomachs reminds us that melancholy is not always destructive.
Four Summer Books That Redefine the Beach Read
Who says a good beach read can’t also be a book that packs some punch? Here are four of this summer’s best.
Review: LIVING IN THE WEATHER OF THE WORLD by Richard Bausch
While not all of the fourteen stories in his new collection are a fair illustration of his ability, the balance demonstrates, once again, why he deserves a lasting place among American literary masters.
Review: OPTION B: FACING ADVERSITY, BUILDING RESILIENCE, AND FINDING JOY by Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant
Indeed, the theme of moving on—but not necessarily past—tragedy is her central message here.
ERNESTO by Umberto Saba
Umberto Saba died four years after writing Ernesto (1953), and it went unpublished until 1975 when its content would have been far less radical than in 1953.
Three Chapbook Reviews from the New-Generation African Poets (NNE) Box Set
The chapbook box set New-Generation African Poets, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani, is the fifth of its kind, an annual project of the African Poetry Book Fund, produced by Akashic Books. The set consists of chapbooks by poets either living in Africa or of African heritage.
Review: LIKE THAT by Matthew Yeager
One hundred pages, six poems. A hand holding a small ball of foil reaches across the center of the cover, finger stretched, insistent or offering.
Review: ORBIT by Cynthia Zarin
The volume has its own points of gravity that, comet-like, it revisits as it moves forward.
Review: THE VEGETARIAN’S GUIDE TO EATING MEAT: A YOUNG WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR ETHICAL FOOD by Marissa Landrigan
Food choices, she argues, are not just an animal rights question, but one embodying environmental, labor, and fair trade concerns.