Judd Apatow, Comedy Nerd: A Lifelong Obsession in Stories and Pictures | Cameron Crowe, The Uncool: A Memoir

Random House | Avid Reader Review by George Yatchisin It would be impossible to write the story of late 20th century-early 21st century pop culture without considering the work of…

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Random House Review by Walter Cummins The title captures the central concern of Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, which addresses with depth and complexity what a community of individuals is willing…

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore

Liveright Review by Walter Cummins In her latest book, Jill Lepore presents her analysis of how we have reached the creation of the Artificial State where machines set the guidelines…

Endless Endings: The Many Forms of Death and What They Teach Us About Life by Ricard Solé, trans. by Eduardo Aparicio 

Princeton Review by Walter Cummins Endless Endings brings to mind lines from Hotspur’s dying speech in Henry IV, Part 1: “And time, that takes a survey of all the world, …

Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti, trans. by Clémence Aubert

Espresso French Classics Review by Linda Lappin In 1890, the American writer Lafcadio Hearn stepped off a ship in Yokohama, ready to begin a new life in Japan as a…

Summer of ’71: Five Months That Changed America by John A. Jenkins

Citadel Press Review by Brian Tanguay I was twelve years old in 1971 and oblivious to much of the social and political turmoil happening in Washington D.C. and on university…

Please Don’t Touch The Body by Emily Doyle

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay I appreciate a finely crafted short story and the eleven stories in this collection easily meet that criteria. For a debut collection, Emily Doyle displays…

Brought To You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy by Amy Westervelt

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay Truth or spin. Fact or opinion. Journalism or propaganda. In our time, information flows in volumes impossible to keep pace with and much of it…

Girl to Country: A Memoir by Amy Rigby

Southern Domestic Review by George Yatchisin Singer-songwriter Amy Rigby sets up the arc of her moving, charming, outsider-insider’s memoir Girl to Country poignantly in the prologue, when she considers what…

Born Lucky by Sarah McElwain

Rain Mountain Review by Walter Cummins A question hovering over Sarah McElwain’s entire novel from the very first sentence is whether the unlikely named Evening K. Titlebaum will be granted…