(Ballantine Books) Review by Brian Tanguay If you’re drawn to novels with a broad sweep of time and place, The Wind Knows My Name, the latest from Isabel Allende, deserves…
Tag: California Review of Books
A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization by John Perlin
(Patagonia) Review by Brian Tanguay The first edition of John Perlin’s A Forest Journey was published in 1989. Its unique synthesis of history and science quickly marked it as a…
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
(milkweed editions) Essay by Brian Tanguay This June and July were two of the hottest months ever recorded. Wildfires in Canada blanketed a swath of the United States in choking…
Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge, from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester
Harper Collins Review by Walter Cummins While Simon Winchester’s book is an entertaining read because he writes well and tells a good story, a more accurate title might be Knowing…
All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley
Simon & Schuster Review by David Starkey What in the world are they thinking, those uniformed museum guards standing in the corners of the galleries, looking alternately stern and bored,…
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House Review by David Starkey Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel Romanic Comedy really is a romantic comedy, complete with lovers who initially seem mismatched, complications and hurdles, and an ending…
In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey by Jeff Biggers
Melville House Review by Linda Lappin Sardinia’s landscapes captivate visitors: pink granite cliffs whipped into weird shapes, massive basalt boulders, tawny hills where tiny wild horses roam, dunes of sparkling…
Fat Time and Other Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
Graywolf Review by Walter Cummins The contents of most short story collections are united by similarities of voice, tone, and subject matter. Despite differences of characters, dramatic issues, and even…
Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
Harper Review by Jinny Webber A manhunt across the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven in 1660 drives Robert Harris’ latest novel, Act of Oblivion. Two officers in Oliver…
An Interview with John Holman
John Holman is the author of two memoirs, Pom’s Odyssey and A Horse in My Suitcase (see the In Brief review that follows the interview), which chronicle his boyhood on…