Reviews
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Imagining a Worst-Case Scenario: John Vaillant’s Fire Weather
The boreal forests around the town do habitually burn, and its residents were used to seeing flames over their skies in summer months.
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Animal as Metaphor: Erica Berry’s Wolfish
Living entities, with whom we cannot communicate fully, seduce us in their majesty.
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Recollections of a Non-Existence: Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X
“There was no con. There was no crime. There was only fiction.”
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Memory Among Landscape: Alissa Hattman’s Sift
. . . in a barren world with little protection and corners to hide, it’s also impossible to hide from our thoughts . . .
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Sketch Book Reviews: Night Vision
I love it when a book forces me to reassess my thinking on a particular subject.
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A Perfect Sketch of a Moment: Janet Malcolm’s Still Pictures
“Memory is not a journalist’s tool. Memory glimmers and hints, but shows nothing sharply or clear.”
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Female Trouble: Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
If you want to evoke the idea of who someone really is, start by showing us what they see.
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The No-Man’s Land Between Art and Self: Seth Rogoff’s The Kirschbaum Lectures
We look for ourselves in literature—for comfort or for guidance—but the page rarely provides a clean mirror.
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Sketch Book Reviews: Poetry Unbound
I think when things in the world seem particularly bad/sad/awful, poetry can add a little light
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The Sound of Home: Sonorous Desert by Kim Haines-Eitzen
. . . if we open our ears . . . we might even find ourselves feeling truly home
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Waking Up at the Wake: Desire, Death, and Disruption in A Shiver in the Leaves
When I consider a shiver in the leaves, my mind fares in two directions: One is back to my first-time experience with psilocybin, shocked at how the fig leaves hung as if shivering . . . and the other is…
