Brawler by Lauren Groff

Riverhead Review by Walter Cummins The title of this collection is appropriate for each of its nine stories. In some literal brawls take place, the combatants physically scarred. In others…

The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes

Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence…

Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945 by Ian Buruma

Penguin Review by Walter Cummins While I was reading Stay Alive, bombs—many more powerful than those of World War II, others delivered by drones—were falling on a number of cities—Kyiv,…

A Ribbon for Your Hair: Loss. More Loss.  And How We (Sort of) Went On by Stephen Policoff

Heliotrope Review by Lisa Del Rosso A Ribbon for Your Hair: Loss. More Loss. And How We (Sort of) Went On  by Stephen Policoff, is a memoir about the loss of…

Time Traveling by Kate Deimling

Cornerstone Review by Paul Willis Kate Deimling’s debut collection of poetry travels through the reader’s mind like a stray clock, chiming the hours past, present, and future in a harmony…

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

Penguin Review by Walter Cummin In A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, Michael Pollan makes an offhand reference to Plato’s cave, “where artificial agents are confined and forced to…

This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days by John Darnielle

MCD Review by George Yatchisin If the claim “songs are poetry” drives you batty, John Darnielle’s This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days will give you fits. Darnielle…

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes

Knopf Review by Walter Cummins A significant pleasure of reading one of Julian Barnes many books is enjoying his verbal inventiveness and appreciating the workings of his mind. His deeper…

When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented Comedy by David Margolick

Schocken Review by Walter Cummins The hardest I’ve ever laughed took place more than fifty years ago. David Margolick’s book brought it all back in full hysterics, the experience of…

A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken

Ecco Review by Walter Cummins When first reading A Long Game, I kept wondering who the book was written for. The title and the author would attract those of us…