Who Was Robert Plunket?
I might not have read a single truly funny novel that year if my friend hadn’t stopped by my Los Angeles porch one afternoon carrying an out-of-print copy of Robert Plunket’s comic masterpiece, My Search for Warren Harding . We were in the worst of days—the depths of the pre-vaccine pandemic—and our world was on […]
In Eliza Minot’s Third Novel, Little Things Are Everything
Unfolding over the course of a single October day, “In the Orchard” zooms in on beautiful and worrisome minutiae. “In the Orchard” focuses on an ordinary day in the life of a family. Credit…Rachel Levit Ruiz When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. What is the relationship […]
Book review: Writing Landscape, by Linda Cracknell
Her earlier work often found her on the move, but in her latest book Linda Cracknell seems more interested in the power of being still, writes Roger Cox In 2014, the Perthshire-based author Linda Cracknell wrote a book called Doubling Back: Ten Paths Trodden in Memory, which deserves to be celebrated as one of the […]
Three Siblings Get By With a Little Help From a Friend
If you are lucky enough to have come of age in a time when seeking treatment for anxiety is akin to, say, visiting a dermatologist for acne, you might have some trouble getting your bearings in “Commitment,” Mona Simpson’s generously proportioned, gently powerful seventh novel. But if you grew up among people who whispered certain […]
‘The Writing Retreat’ by Julia Bartz – Book Review
The Writing Retreat could have been a decent little thriller, and there’s definitely glimmers in here of a better book under the overwhelming amount of baggage that comes packed in the 400 or so pages this one operates with. Between the angst-filled characters, the laborious pace, and the generous helping of the ludicrously incredulous, this […]
The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class That Tried to Win the Cold War by Philip Oltermann
In the early 1960s, the East German secret police—commonly known as the Stasi—gathered some of its staff to compose and share their poetry. The group called themselves the Writing Circle of Chekists, borrowing the word “cheka” from their fellow spies in Russia, and they met once a month for almost three decades. But what exactly […]
Q&A: Taranaki writer Emma Hislop talks about her new book
New Plymouth author Emma Hislop, (Kāi Tahu), will have her debut collection of short fiction, Ruin, and other stories, published by Te Herenga Waka in March. She is now working on her first novel. Why did you decide to start writing? Writing is my way of working things out. I write to work out how […]
International Literature: Lush Landscapes, Hazy Memories
New books from Kevin Jared Hosein, Pilar Quintana, Nona Fernández and Patrick Modiano. Kevin Jared Hosein’s novel HUNGRY GHOSTS (327 pp., Ecco, $30) takes place on a sugar estate in 1940s Trinidad and the language is as lush, moody and thrilling as the landscape. On the hill is the house of Dalton and Marlee Changoor, […]
Books for Valentine’s Day
Molly Young is on leave for the next several months. In her absence, colleagues from the Book Review will pick up the recommendation torch and appear in your inbox every two Saturdays. As a child, I always liked Valentine’s Day. My mom would leave a valentine by our cereal bowls, and sometimes Andy’s little heart […]
A Nun With Very Bad Habits
Sister Holiday, the protagonist of Margot Douaihy’s showstopper of a series debut SCORCHED GRACE (Gillian Flynn Books/Zando, 310 pp., $27.95) isn’t what you’d imagine a nun to be like, even in laissez-faire New Orleans. “Not that I knew what to make of a nun like me — gold tooth from a bar fight, black scarf […]