Life at the Dumpling by Trisha Cole

Review by George Yatchisin Despite the obvious misery of the pandemic, if you had the luck, privilege, and health to make it through, it also provided opportunity. It forced us…

1974: A Personal History by Francine Prose

Harper Review by George Yatchisin Here’s why Francine Prose is a better writer than you or me—she can craft a sentence like, “Tony was very funny, though when you say…

Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show by Tommy Tomlinson

Avid Reader Review by George Yatchisin As I was reading Tommy Tomlinson’s Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show, something delightful and ridiculous—at least in…

And Then? And Then? What Else? by Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket

Liveright Review by George Yatchisin Given he has previously penned a series of four books called All the Wrong Questions, it’s not surprising author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) would…

The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster by John O’Connor

Sourcebooks Review by George Yatchisin How much of writing is staring down the dark. (Just ask Dante and his selva oscura.) Of course that also means, how much of life…

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

Putnam Review by George Yatchisin Kiley Reid’s second novel Come and Get It might appear to be a campus-set comedy of manners, but the joke will be on you if…

Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino

Scribner Review by George Yatchisin If fathers and sons didn’t exist, novelists would have had to invent them. Alexander Sammartino, in his debut novel Last Acts, dishes up quite a…

A Bye to Barth by George Yatchisin

The easy joke would be to say that since I wrote a novel last November it killed off John Barth, but that’s too glib a line to honor a preternatural…

The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell

Harper One Review by George Yatchisin You know you’re in great authorial hands when on page two of this book Evelyn McDonnell insists about her subject Joan Didion, “Narrative was…

The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore

Scribner Review by George Yatchisin How unreasonable, the Age of Reason, especially for an illiterate—if wildly, imaginatively thoughtful—peasant. A.K. Blakemore’s new novel The Glutton might be based on a wisp…