“Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me,” by Karen Swallow Prior
It is a happy accident that I picked up Karen Swallow Prior’s Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me right after I had finished Norman Wirzba’s Food and Faith: A…
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“Babel’s Moon” by Brandon Som
In the 2000 Chinese film, In the Mood for Love, an ancient story is shared that portends to secrets: if you have a burning secret, you must take it to…
“To Keep Love Blurry” by Craig Morgan Teicher
Craig Morgan Teicher’s third collection To Keep Love Blurry calls attention to our formal and confessional roots in giants such as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Frost. Teicher’s wife,…
Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy
In her new collection, Our Andromeda, Brenda Shaughnessy presents emotions at their most bare in experiences both familiar and alien—and alien sometimes in a literal sense as the speakers regularly…
Charms Against Lightning by James Arthur
The debut collection of poetry might just deserve its own taxon in the categorizing of literary contributions. One can almost picture beneath the heading of ‘Debuts’ a series of subheadings…
“The Doctor’s Wife,” by Luis Jaramillo
Luis Jaramillo’s The Doctor’s Wife is a collection of short stories that reads saga captured in tableaux. This is a family narrative in 91 arresting and varied compositions halved into…
“With the Animals,” by Noelle Revaz
Paul, the narrator and subject of Noëlle Revaz’s With the Animals, is a rustic Swiss farmer with strong opinions but a weak intellect; he is a man of formidable emotion…
“Bender: New and Selected Poems” by Dean Young
I would be in trouble if I had to choose a favorite Dean Young poem. I remember when I stood in a bookstore reading Elegy on Toy Piano, before I…
“This Jealous Earth,” by Scott Dominic Carpenter
Scott Dominic Carpenter’s This Jealous Earth is the first book published by thriving literary journal Midwestern Gothic’s new press, MG Press. While Carpenter was born and currently resides in Minnesota,…
“My Poets” by Maureen McLane
Maureen McLane has published two daring, original collections of poetry, and a book called Balladeering, Minstrelsy, and the Making of British Romantic Poetry, from Cambridge University Press. Balladeering, with sometimes…
“Pure,” by Andrew Miller
The central question of Andrew Miller’s novel Pure, set in Louis XVI’s pre-revolutionary France, mirrors that of the recent American presidential election—“yes on progress, but at what cost?”