Lesser Ruins by Mark Haber

Coffee House Review by Walter Cummins Just opening a copy of Lesser Ruins at any point and encountering a two-page spread of a single block of type signals a challenge…

The Harder I Fight the More I Love You by Neko Case

Grand Central Review by George Yatchisin Given she’s enchanted by fairy tales, it’s only fitting that Neko Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight the More I Love You leaves its…

American Mother: A Life Reclaimed by Colum McCann and Diane Foley

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay James Foley was the first American citizen executed by ISIS. He was decapitated in Northern Syria in August 2014. The act was filmed. The perpetrators…

Arctic Predator: The Crimes of Edward Horne Against Children in Canada’s North by Kathleen Lippa

Dundurn Press Review by Brian Tanguay What most impressed me about Arctic Predator, journalist Kathleen Lippa’s book about the crimes of notorious sexual predator Edward Horne, is her determination to investigate…

A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World by Ryan Murdock

Trinity Review by David Starkey Ryan Murdock’s A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World feels like two…

The Countryside: Ten Rural Walks Through Britain and Its Hidden History of Empire by Corinne Fowler

Scribner Review by Walter Cummins I’m fortunate to have taken several of Fowler’s ten rural walks in Britain along with a number of similar routes. But my ignorance limited me…

Portraits in Life and Death by Peter Hujar

Liveright Review by David Starkey Originally published in 1976, Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life and Death might well be called Portraits of Life in Death or Portraits of Death in…

The Prelude by William Wordsworth

Brandeis Review by David Starkey The subtitle to this edition of William Wordsworth’s The Prelude provides a hint of just how jam-packed the book is with ancillary material. “Newly Edited…

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

Flatiron Review by Walter Cummins The world of this novel is ominously dystopian—constant rain pounding a city of unmoored, vulnerable buildings, displaced people fearful of being flooded out of threatened…

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan

Basic Books Essay by Brian Tanguay Many of the books and articles I’ve read about the Middle East during the past year make passing reference to the Ottoman Empire, often…