Poetry and Persona
The essays in Queen of the Fall describe, with wrenching precision, a woman's inability to have children.
All Reviews
War of the Imagination
The book’s title may at first sound like the name of a death metal band, but "The Infernal" is likely a portmanteau of "inferno" and "internal": an internalized and self-made hell-on-earth.
When Best Friends Fall Apart
Juliana Romano's debut novel for young adults paints a portrait of changing friendships on a Southern California background.
The Memories of Elephants
Violence plays an essential, defining role in novelist Tania James’s stunning second novel, The Tusk That Did the Damage. The novel shines a necessary light on the challenges faced when living alongside the wild.
Life Was Fiction in Disguise
How James Merrill went from a poetic "finical interior decorator" to one of the most accomplished verse technicians of the 20th century.
Is God Necessary?
"Had I asked 'Is God necessary?' a few centuries ago, I would have probably been stoned to death or burned alive."
Ready to Sing: Angie Estes’s Enchantée
Christopher Spaide on Angie Estes's "Enchantée."
I Am Not a Cheese
Ian Bostridge explores the literary, historical, and postmodern psychological themes that weave through Schubert's 24-song cycle, "Winterreise."
Rethinking the Invisible: Philip Ball’s Historical Account
In "Invisible," Philip Ball addresses the relationship between scientific inquiry and our beliefs about the world beyond our senses.
Finding Your Shambolic Magic
"In the All-Night Café" describes the year before the release of "Tigermilk" and helps to explain how Belle and Sebastian's sound was a product of their environment.
Questionable Candor and PTSD
Could a woman's desire to get close to a convicted murderer stem from PTSD?
Europe’s Accidental Country
Albania, Europe's accidental country, has a dirty secret: pyramid schemes.
Empathy and the Existential in Mental Illness and Psychotherapy
Lee Gutkind's "Same Time Next Week" and Irvin D. Yalom's "Creatures of a Day" represent two takes on the state of psychotherapy and mental illness today.
A Global Poetry for Troubled Times
"The Secret of Hoa Sen" is a dark, gritty, sentimental collection from one of Vietnam's foremost contemporary poets, Nguyen Phan Que Mai.
Yet Another Genre for Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley has published the second volume of her "Last Hundred Years" trilogy.
Negative Spaces
Latifah Salom on Heidi Pitlor's second novel.
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