Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Review by Walter Cummins Sally Rooney’s central charterers in Intermezzo, her fourth novel, talk quite a bit, just about every time they interact, hashing and rehashing…

The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness by Leslie Valiant

Princeton Review by Walter Cummins As I read the explanatory chapters of Leslie Valiant’s The Importance of Being Educable—winner of the Turing Award, I found myself quibbling with him about…

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

One World Review by Brian Tanguay “I think this tradition of writing, of drawing out a common humanity, is indispensable to our future, if only because what must be cultivated…

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Random House Review by David Starkey I honestly don’t know how much I would have enjoyed Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Tell Me Everything, if I hadn’t already been familiar with…

I Think We’ve Been Here Before by Suzy Krause

radiant press Review by Brian Tanguay The central event in Suzy Krause’s latest novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, is the end of the world. Sometime just after Christmas…

Webbed Skies by Melissa Cody

Museu de Arte de São Paulo / KMEC Review by David Starkey Webbed Skies is the monograph accompanying a recent exhibition of Melissa Cody’s weavings at the Museum of Modern…

Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City by Richard E. Ocejo

Princeton Review by David Starkey In the conclusion of his new book, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City, Richard Ocejo, a sociology professor at John…

Life at the Dumpling by Trisha Cole

Review by George Yatchisin Despite the obvious misery of the pandemic, if you had the luck, privilege, and health to make it through, it also provided opportunity. It forced us…

A Year of Birds: Writings on Birds from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Geoff Wisner, illustrated by Barry Van Dusen

Mercer Review by David Starkey I happened to spend last Saturday morning at Walden pond, on a warm October day, with plenty of people fishing, swimming in the 68-degree water…

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Doubleday Review by Walter Cummins Kate Atkinson’s title for her sixth Jackson Brodie detective novel, Death at the Sign of the Rook, offers a broad hint that she is about…