Everyman’s Library Review by David Starkey First of all, God bless Everyman’s Library. What other publisher lists among its new releases the novels and tales of Pushkin, the poetry of…
Tag: Review by David Starkey
James by Percival Everett
Doubleday Review by David Starkey If you were going to choose an author to rewrite The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim/James, it would be…
California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline by Rosanna Xia
Heyday Review by David Starkey In California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline, Rosanna Xia, an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, writes: “When talking about climate…
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
Riverhead Review by David Starkey In some respects, Lauren Groff’s latest novel is an old-fashioned adventure tale. It begins with a teen girl, “bony and childish small” but quick, smart…
The Lichen Museum by A. Laurie Palmer
Minnesota Review by David Starkey Readers thinking that lichen don’t sound like the most scintillating topic for a book have a valid concern. After all, these organisms created by the…
Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt by Willard Spiegelman | Jane Kenyon: The Making of a Poet by Dana Greene
Knopf | Illinois Review by David Starkey Some striking similarities emerge between the subjects of Willard Spiegelman’s Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt and Dana Greene’s…
The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired the World’s Great Authors by Jackie Bennett, with photographs by Richard Hanson
Frances Lincoln Review by David Starkey Does a writer need a garden to write? Obviously not, but The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired the World’s Great Authors suggests that having…
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
Pantheon Review by David Starkey Helen Garner is having a well-deserved moment. The eighty-one-year-old author, renowned in her native Australia, but until recently barely known in the U.S., has benefited…
California Review of Books – 10 Best Books of 2023
The following list was decided after much consultation between California Review of Books co-editors David Starkey and Brian Tanguay and the journals’ most frequent reviewers, Walter Cummins and George Yatchisin.…