“50 American Plays” by Matthew and Michael Dickman
I’ve visited exactly half of the states that make up our federal constitutional republic. I’m counting states that I’ve lived in, vacationed in, or merely driven through. Some of the…
Reviews
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The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets by Diana Wagman
The recent glut of apocalyptic novels has encouraged readers’ desires to become armchair spectators to doom. Our front-row seats at the end-of-days enable us to cheer for the scrappy protagonist…
“Mortality,” by Christopher Hitchens
An amorphous aura resonates around authors we discover on our own. Before we hear of their fame and talent, before everyone recommends their book as a “must read” we find…
“What Is Amazing” by Heather Christle
What Is Amazing by Heather Christle is another illustration of my frustration with the word “critic,” why I think “appreciator” is a closer approximation and why I’m still open to…
“The 6.5 Habits of Moderately Successful Poets,” by Jeffrey Skinner
You might be forgiven if, like a kid looking through the newspaper for comic strips, you return to this book only to enjoy the humorous lists, tables, and other extras…
Crossing State Lines: An American Renga edited by Bob Homan and Carol Muske-Dukes
I first discovered Renga: A Chain of Poems (Brazillier, 1972) in a used bookstore in New York during my first year of graduate school. I was transfixed.
“The Festival of Earthly Delights,” by Matt Dojny
When asked by Necessary Fiction to describe the research for his debut novel, The Festival of Earthly Delights, Matt Dojny hand-wrote a scrawling response filled with oddities, doodles, and this…
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Kevin Nolan reviews Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan today in Rumpus Books.
“The Girls of Peculiar” by Catherine Pierce
There is a canon of cinema that revolves around girls leaving girlhood, and finding themselves young and nubile, ready (so they think) to embrace their future as women. There’s the…
“Diving Belles,” by Lucy Wood
The very act of writing is a kind of magic. Small black etchings on paper conjure up worlds, people, events, transporting you, the reader, to a different place, a different…
“Robinson Alone” by Kathleen Rooney
First things first: you don’t have to be a fan of Weldon Kees to enjoy this book. Shameful confession: until I read the note that precedes the table of contents,…
“Hush Hush,” by Steven Barthelme
Steven Barthelme’s new collection of short stories Hush Hush plays like the best of saddest love songs. These are elegiac, yet hopeful stories about characters who bumble through existence, struggle…