Book Reviews Archive

Review: PRODIGALS by Greg Jackson

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Greg Jackson’s debut collection is full of different voices that seem to make up a collective sound. These stories take their characters to task as much as they sympathize or identify with them. Jackson may well be trying to figure out the answers to life his characters so desperately

Review: RAPTURE by Sjohnna McCray

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Rapture Sjohnna McCray Graywolf Press; April 2016 72 pp; $16 Buy: paperback | Kindle “Father and Son by Window,” the opening poem in Sjohnna McCray’s debut poetry collection Rapture, has an ephemeral feel; the poem rises like a plume of smoke. “You sing, soft winds and blue seat,” it begins, a

Review: THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS by Eric Weiner

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The author of The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places, from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley says our ideas about creativity underestimate the importance of place. But how did creative clusters arise in such varied cultures: Renaissance Florence, The Song Dynasty, Edinburgh during the

This Spring’s Must-Reads

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The warmer weather brings with it some of the best publications of the year, and here are four of our spring favorites. So Sad Today Melissa Broder March 15 Grand Central $15.99 Poet and Vice columnist Melissa Broder is undoubtedly one of the best essay stylists at work today.

Review: İSTANBUL İSTANBUL by Burhan Sönmez, translated by Ümit Hussein

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İstanbul İstanbul Burhan Sönmez, translated by Ümit Hussein OR Books, May 2016 192 pp, $18 Buy: paperback | eBook Unlike in New York, where managing to live in the city for ten years grants one the status of being a New Yorker, rarely will you meet a person living

In Bookstores Near You

In 1995, Dennis Covington’s breakout book, Salvation on Sand Mountain (Addison-Wesley), told the story of his immersion into the world of snakehandling, faith healing, and the fervent religious sects of the Appalachians. Back then, his search for renewal was triggered when, as a stringer for the New York Times,

NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries II and III

This is the second installment of a year-long journey through Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. Here’s the first installment. ** Query II: A notice of its rivers, rivulets, and how far they are navigable Query III: A notice of the best Seaports of the State, and

Review: SUBLIME PHYSICK by Patrick Madden

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When reading Sublime Physick, the yin-yang symbol comes to mind, as Madden cites academic thinkers and essayists from generations past, alongside contemporary popular icons, usually of the musical variety, specifically his personal favorites like John Lennon and Geddy Lee.

Review: HORSEFEVER by Lee Hope

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Lee Hope, in her richly imagined and ambitious novel, Horsefever, explores a similar dynamic both between rider and horse and between women and men, but she goes beyond Lawrence to explore riding as a metaphor for the challenge and art of story-telling. Her story-in-progress itself becomes the author’s

On Building Believable Characters in Fiction

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Before I picked up a copy of Offshore last month, it had been years since I read Penelope Fitzgerald, a British author who didn’t start writing until she was in her sixties. But the characters in this Booker Prize-winning novel caught my attention and I soon became completely emerged