Author Archive
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.
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.
Review: I KNOW YOUR KIND by William Brewer
With scars across its pages, I Know Your Kind conveys the pervasive shadow the opioid epidemic casts across Oceana—and, by extension, towns like Oceana—in a way that statistics, figures, and journalism cannot.
Review: OUT OF THE BLUE: NEW SHORT FICTION FROM ICELAND Edited by Helen Mitsios
These stories stray far from tourist brochure representations; they are not filled with glacial lagoons, ice caves, thermal pools, or Björk.
Review: A TWENTY MINUTE SILENCE FOLLOWED BY APPLAUSE by Shawn Wen
If Marcel Marceau as a performer and a French man was cheeky, brilliant, and impossible, it seems no accident the title of Wen's book-length essay is what it is.
Review: EASTMAN WAS HERE by Alex Gilvarry
In focusing on the interior life of a man in crisis, Gilvarry is able to speak to the beauty that can be found at the end of an existential crisis, at the end of middle age.
Review: IRRESISTIBLE: THE RISE OF ADDICTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF KEEPING US HOOKED by Adam Alter
According to Adam Alter, 70 percent of office emails are read within six seconds of arrival.
Review: LONESOME LIES BEFORE US by Don Lee
Don Lee's latest novel proves to be a deceptively nuanced tale about the disconnect between our dreams and the limits of how far we'll go to obtain them.
Review: HARD CHILD by Natalie Shapero
These often dark and deeply personal poems are armored with comedic turns and allusions to our “rotting times.”