Book Review by Marc Murr Ostensibly, this poetic novel is written as a letter from the author to his mother. In reality, I think the author has written a letter to himself. Thus, in a more complicated way, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous is of that literary genre that explores the theme of initiation. […]
Book Review by Carol Biedrzycki of The Overstory by Richard Powers The Overstory is a wild ride. It is written in rich prose. I frequently found myself backtracking to make sure I got the point. I’m also not ashamed to admit I learned a few new words like coeval and ursine. The Overstory is […]
In Stephen McCauley’s brilliant novel, “My Ex-Life”, David Hedges’ life has hit “a season of aggrieved discontent.” He helps San Francisco rich kids get into the colleges of their (parents’) choice – the legitimate way: essays, scoring high on entrance tests, and community service. Having to convince kids to care and parents to have realistic […]
It is rare to find an individual who has not secretly dreamed of checking themselves into a hotel for an extended period of time with no plans whatsoever. A Gentleman in Moscow allows readers to live this fantasy. It’s June of 1922 when we first meet Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order of […]
Review by Andrew Kuharevicz Beyond Words (nonfiction) is about those ideas and thought processes that take place without speech, i.e. without words. This is the notion of “mind reading” in cognitive science, and it is applied to the animal world. We’re not talking about psychic abilities and science fiction, but rather, how we can tell […]
Fiction writers create worlds with words – time, setting, mood, characters, meaning – hopefully delivered with an emotional impression. James McBride proved himself a deft creator of worlds with the National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird. The challenge with short stories is creating multiple meaningful worlds in just a few pages each. With […]
Review by Andrew H. Kuharevicz “Here, then, is what I learned on, or because of, the American schoolbus:” Above is an opening line to an early chapter in the “novel”, Against The Country, by Ben Metcalf (country being rural surrounded by small town). It’s a difficult, award winning book (Ten best books of the year, […]
Listed as one of New York Times top 10 books of 2018, Asymmetry is a literary phenomenon that satisfies on multiple levels. On the basic level, the novel offers two engaging, purposely unrelated stories, exquisitely written. At the next higher level, there are delicately subtle “blink-and-you-will-miss-it” threads that tie the sections together. Still higher, the novel explores […]
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice is an enthralling memoir by Bill Browder that reads like an espionage thriller. Bill Browder comes from a leftist family. His grandfather, Earl Browder, runs for President on the American Communist Party ticket in 1936 and 1940. He appears on […]
On the surface, this is a story of a young, idealistic college kid from the University of Michigan wanting to use his studies and hard work to make a difference in the town that needed the biggest difference made: Detroit. He moved with no money, no job, and no friends to an apartment in the […]
