Faber and Faber Review by George Yatchisin At a mere 4.5 by 6.5 inches, only 122 pages long, with a cover that’s bright white and soothing flamingo pink, Brian Eno…
Tag: Review by George Yatchisin
Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya
Ballantine Review by George Yatchisin It’s no coincidence that the two main subjects of Sameer Pandya’s second novel Our Beautiful Boys are family and violence. Set in a vaguely Santa…
Nobody’s Empire by Stuart Murdoch
Harper Via Review by George Yatchisin It would be easy to spend a ton of time teasing out where writer/musician Stuart Murdoch ends from where the main character of his…
99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life by Adam Chandler
Pantheon Review by George Yatchisin A few weeks into the oligarchical hell of “Trump II: This Time We Leave the Country Stripped on Blocks,” Adam Chandler’s 99% Perspiration: A New…
The Harder I Fight the More I Love You by Neko Case
Grand Central Review by George Yatchisin Given she’s enchanted by fairy tales, it’s only fitting that Neko Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight the More I Love You leaves its…
A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman by Robert Hilburn
Hachette Review by George Yatchisin A tunesmith with a con, not a song, in his heart, Randy Newman is a quintessential American composer. And like America, what a bill of goods…
Rental House by Weike Wang
Riverhead Review by George Yatchisin You’re a mere five pages into Weike Wang’s masterful novel Rental House when she does this to you, as her married couple main characters, one…
What Nails It by Greil Marcus
Yale Review by George Yatchisin Trying to write a book review about essays in which one of our preeminent social critics, Greil Marcus, explores why he writes criticism…well, I’ve already…
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…
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood by Gail Crowther
Gallery Books Review by George Yatchisin Late in her life Dorothy Parker claimed during an interview that if she wrote a memoir—which she was loathe to do (and never did)—she…