Book Reviews Archive
Picasso’s Tears
Picasso’s Tears Wong May Octopus Books, June 2014 323 Pages $24 Buy: book Few books of poetry this year will have a more interesting back story than this one. Born in China in 1944 and raised in Singapore, Wong May came to the United States in the 1960s to
Talkativeness
Talkativeness Michael Earl Craig Wave Books, April 2014 104 pages $18.00 Buy: book If you were among those persuaded by Thin Kimono (2010) that Michael Earl Craig was a poet to watch, you may consider your intuitions confirmed. Talkativeness dwells a little more deeply in the voice of that
Review: Dear Lil Wayne
Dear Lil Wayne Lauren Ireland Magic Helicopter Press, April 2014 76 pages $11 Buy: book Joe Wenderoth’s Letters to Wendy’s celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Sad to say, the book has not aged as gracefully as I had hoped. Every time I bring out a few selections from
Around the World in 209 Teams: A Review of Thirty-One Nil by James Montague
Thirty-One Nil: On the Road With Football’s Outsiders–A World Cup Odyssey James Montague Bloomsbury, 2014, Bloomsbury 330 pages $18.00 Buy: book | ebook The work-ditching phenomena that our globe experienced throughout June and July, known as the World Cup, is really just the polished and gawked-at tip of the
The Pedestrians
The Pedestrians Rachel Zucker Wave Books, April 2014 160 pages $18.00 Buy: book Rachel Zucker is a writer of daunting productivity. The Pedestrians is her sixth poetry collection since 2002; she has also published a memoir, co-authored a book about home birth with Arielle Greenberg, and co-edited two anthologies—this
Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems
Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems James Baldwin Beacon Press, April 2014 120 pages $16.00 Buy: book | ebook The cover of Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems features blurbs by none other than Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, telling the world to read this book. I’ll be honest; I feel like I
For Today I Am a Boy
For Today I Am a Boy Kim Fu Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2014 256 pages $23.00 Buy: book | ebook Kim Fu opens her touching debut novel with a birth on the concrete floor of a butcher shop. This story is one that’s been passed down through the Huang
Some Day
Some Day Shemi Zarhin Trans. Yardenne Greenspan New Vessel Press, October 2013 $16.99 450 pages What: Epic family drama With lots of: Food Also: Lust, love, loss, and longing Where: Tiberias, by Israel’s Sea of Galilee When: 1969-1983 Concerning: Shlomi, a child who develops near-magical culinary talents Hilik, his
Don’t Go See World War Z!
Hollywood’s latest apocalyptic zombie romp, World War Z, could have been great. If it followed the lead that the book set out, it could have portrayed a nuanced view of life ten years after the world was overrun by zombies. When the book was turned into a movie, however,
Fellow Mortals
Fellow Mortals Dennis Mahoney Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 2013 288 pages $15.00 In the wild, there are plants whose seeds lay dormant for long stretches of time, passive and unchanging, until scarified by a fire hot enough to breach their outer layers—and to ravage the landscape around them—so