The Mighty Six-Ninety (690) by Alexander Hamilton Cherin

Review by Brian Tanguay In the early 1980s, before the consolidation of media ownership gathered steam, and well before the digital revolution completely altered the broadcast landscape, AM radio occupied…

End of Active Service: A Novel by Matt Young

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay Dean Pusey is broken. By the Marine Corps and a tour of duty in Iraq. By the circumstances of his birth and adoption. By confusion…

Women! In! Peril!: stories by Jessie Ren Marshall

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay I can’t remember if I requested this collection of stories from the publisher or if it was just sent to me, but it arrived at…

The Manicurist’s Daughter: A Memoir by Susan Lieu

Celadon Books Review by Brian Tanguay Several years after the fall of Saigon, Susan Lieu’s parents fled Vietnam to escape suffocating Communist rule. Leaving was an enormous risk filled with…

Places We Swim California: A Guide to the Best Rivers, Lakes, Waterfalls, Beaches, Gorges, and Hot Springs by Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon

Hardie Grant Review by Brian Tanguay California’s geographic diversity and beauty has long inspired seekers, dreamers, and people of capacious imagination. The state’s many natural wonders dwarf our human stature…

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Norton Review by Brian Tanguay Whether he’s working as a war photographer or fixer, betting his last chips at the blackjack table, or pursuing handsome young men, Maali Almeida can’t…

The Berman Murders: Unraveling the Mojave Desert’s Most Mysterious Unsolved Crime by Doug Kari

Rowman & Littlefield Review by Brian Tanguay Unsolved murders are commonplace in some parts of the world. People disappear, bodies are dumped, and overwhelmed, under-resourced or corrupt officials refuse to…

Soil: The Story of A Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

Simon & Schuster Review by Brian Tanguay Gardening and mindfulness cannot help but go hand in hand. The work of planting and tending a garden, whether in a suburban yard…

The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Review by Brian Tanguay In my reading over the past thirty years I’ve come across numerous references or quotes attributed to Frantz Fanon, but I’ve yet…

Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay Gail Godwin published her first novel, The Perfectionists, in 1970 and her most recent, Old Lovegood Girls, in 2020. In the years between, Godwin was…