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Saturday, July 11, 2026

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Recently Reviewed

The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman

Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive: Stories by Alison Gadsby

News and Notes

Washington Is Burning: Corruption and Lies in the Age of Trump by Andrew Cockburn

The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them by Aziz Rana

Fiction Reviews

The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman

Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive: Stories by Alison Gadsby

Python’s Kiss: Stories by Louise Erdrich

The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman

Summit Review by Walter Cummins I was more than half way through The Kindness of Strangers before I realized Emma Garman’s real subject in this novel, the uncertainty of identity.…

Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive: Stories by Alison Gadsby

Python’s Kiss: Stories by Louise Erdrich

Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance by Joe Dunthorne

The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind by Rosa Montero, translated by Lindsey Ford

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California Review of Books appreciates the bookstores in our communities and encourages you to support your local independent bookshop. Our links connect to bookshop.org, a website that partners with independent booksellers across the country. CRB receives a small percentage of sales through this site.

California Review of Books offers readers smart, concise and timely reviews of new books, along with regular reviews of older books that we think deserve another look. While we will consider reviewing any good book published anywhere in the world, we admit to having a special fondness for work published in our home state. As we say: Our hearts are in California, but our interests are everywhere. More about us here.