Scribner Review by Walter Cummins We imagine writers doing research as individuals behind a computer screen or in a library carrel surrounded by piles of books and documents, perhaps also…
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The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind by Rosa Montero, translated by Lindsey Ford
Europa Review by Walter Cummins Novelist Rosa Montero opens this book with an admission that “I’ve always known something in the head didn’t work right,” then illustrates with her age…
Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots As Reclaimed Present by Andrea Gunraj
McClelland & Stewart Review by Brian Tanguay For nearly three centuries, transatlantic chattel slavery was the preferred source for colonial labor, the bodies required to cultivate and harvest sugar, rice,…
Winning The Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds To Become The First Woman In Congress by Lorissa Rinehart
St. Martin’s Press Review by Brian Tanguay Barbara Lee, a Black Congresswoman from California, cast the sole vote opposing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force after the 9/11…
Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering by Catherine Liu
Verso Review by Brian Tanguay Catherine Liu doesn’t write like your typical academic. This is what I noticed first about her latest book, Traumatized, a slender volume that delivers in…
Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures: A Biography of Denis Johnson by Ted Geltner
Iowa Review by George Yatchisin Is it possible to feel sad considering the life of someone who authored nine novels (one a winner of the National Book Award), a novella,…
Starting from Paterson by Garret Keizer
Eastover Review by Walter Cummins The nine essays in Keizer’s collection perhaps may be divided into three categories—character studies of individuals close to the author, a report on his religious…
When The World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine by Francesca Albanese, Translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti
Other Press Review by Brian Tanguay Francesca Albanese is a brave woman, a living example of a public figure who follows her most deeply held convictions wherever they lead, regardless…
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
Knopf Review by David Starkey When I finished reading Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel Land, I thought of an Aboriginal Australian proverb that roughly translates as “Land is the story of…
Killing Spree by Jorie Graham
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Review by Laura Mullen “Then the rain came and we thought it / might clean us. / It did not clean us.” In his Theses on…