I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante

Penguin Review by David Starkey The paperback version of Lucy Sante’s I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition was published on January 21, 2025, the day after…

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…

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…

Feint of Heart: Art Writings, 1982-2002 by Dave Hickey

David Zwirner Review by David Starkey Like Greil Marcus writing about music, or Jed Perl and the late Peter Schjeldahl writing about art, Dave Hickey’s essays are interesting whether or…

The Blue-Cliff Record by David Hinton

Shambhala Review by David Starkey Those of us who are not practicing Buddhists, but are still “Zen-curious,” can turn for modest enlightenment to classics like Alan Watts’ The Way of…

Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism by Sebastian Smee

Norton Review by David Starkey I bought my copy of Sebastian Smee’s Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism after visiting an exhibition at the National Gallery…

10 Best Books of 2024

The following list was decided after consultation between California Review of Books co-editors David Starkey and Brian Tanguay and the journal’s most frequent reviewers, Walter Cummins and George Yatchisin. As…

Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik

Scribner Review by George Yatchisin Perched in a cultural place between Ryan Murphy’s Bette and Joan and Craig Seligman’s Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me, Lili Anolik’s Didion & Babitz…

31 Outstanding Poetry Books from 2024 – Alcalá to Zarin

Reviews by David Starkey Every year since 2014, I’ve set aside a couple of months to sit down with what amounts to a long shelf of of poetry published in…