Review by Brian Tanguay Before George Saunders turned his attention to literature he studied engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Engineers are fascinated by the way things work. In…
Category: Genres
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom
Review by George Yatchisin Think of Rachel Bloom’s memoir I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are as a bathroom book. It’s written in zippy chapters—some lists, some mini-screenplays,…
Blue Swan Black Swan: The Trakl Diaries by Stephanie Dickinson
Review by Walter Cummins The Austrian poet Georg Trakl endured a short, distressed life (1887-1914) before he overdosed on cocaine in a psychiatric hospital in Krakow, sent there after a…
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
Review by Walter Cummins Has climate change reached a tipping point? Is it too late, or do we still have an opportunity to redeem the planet? Some optimists, citing previous…
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel
Review by Brian Tanguay The belief that markets and merit are the only way to organize society has become an article of faith in American society and culture. Over the…
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
Review by George Yatchisin Eula Biss wants me to be better and I’m not sure I’m up for that. When I refer to the quick several page essays that build…
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Review by Jinny Webber “Reading The Hearing Trumpet liberates us from the miserable reality of our days,” wrote Luis Buñuel after the 1976 publication of Leonora Carrington’s novel, recently re-released…
My Life with Women: The Consolation of Jazz, Vols. 1 & 2 by Thomas Kennedy
Review by Linda Lappin Thomas E. Kennedy, author of The Copenhagen Quartet, is often considered a “writer’s writer,” one whose name may be known only to a particular niche of…
Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis
Review by Brian Tanguay Kleptocracy is nothing new. Dictators and tyrants like the Shah of Iran, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Vladimir Putin in Russia,…
My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers
Review by David Starkey There is much to recommend My Vanishing Country, a memoir by the former (and future?) politician and current CNN commentator Bakari Sellers. Growing up in a…