The Eyre Affair
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 62 ~ July, 2002
Some of the problem is plotting . . . and then there are the puns.
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by Emily Banner
Book Lovers
Halls of Fame
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 60 ~ May, 2002
If all of Halls of Fame were as carefully constructed as these two pieces, I'd use the term `wondrous' to describe the entire book.
One Man’s Meat
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 59 ~ April, 2002
I got a letter from a lightning rod company this morning trying to put the fear of God in me, but with small success. Lightning seems to have lost its menace. Compared to what is going on on earth today, heaven’s firebrands are penny fireworks …
Sheba
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 55 ~ December, 2001
Before I get to Sheba, the actual subject of this review, I’d like to take a moment to explore a parallel that occurred to me about halfway through the book. It’s a parallel that Nicholas Clapp never addresses directly, but which he must be aware …
Loving Pedro Infante
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 54 ~ November, 2001
Loving Pedro Infante tells the story of Teresina Ávila, or Tere, a divorced thirtysomething teachers’ aide in Cabritoville, New Mexico. Tere has a mother who’s always there for her, a best friend she can tell anything to, a string of romantic failures, and mixed feelings …
The Other Side of Eden
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 53 ~ October, 2001
The Other Side of Eden is a puzzle of a book, by turns engrossing and dull, insightful and preachy. In it, Hugh Brody examines hunter-gatherer cultures, individually and in general, and looks at how these societies coexist — and, more often, clash — with the …
The PowerBook
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 52 ~ September, 2001
Yesterday, as I was considering how to begin my review of The PowerBook, a friend spotted the book on my coffee table. “Jeanette Winterson!” she exclaimed. “She’s a great writer.” I agreed, and we got to talking, and we found that we had both been …
Provinces of Night
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 50 ~ July, 2001
A man nearing the end of a murderous quest — to hunt down and kill his wife’s lover — pauses on the brink of action. He can carry out the plan he’s made, he realizes, but what will he do then? He is “at the …
The Guest From the Future
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 47 ~ April, 2001
The Guest from the Future is a difficult book to classify. It comprises a goodly amount of literary criticism, and the bulk of the work focuses on the life of Anna Akhmatova, yet the author informs us in the preface that “[t]his book is not …
Love, etc.
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 46 ~ March, 2001
I…deal in subjective truth–so much more real, and more reliable, than the other sort… Julian Barnes is, on the evidence of his novels, a man obsessed. For while his books assume different forms and deal with a range of subjects, they are all, at heart, …
The Years with Laura Díaz
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 45 ~ February, 2001
Not long after the publication of her novel The Years, Virginia Woolf attempted to explain the book to a friend. “[W]hat I meant,” she wrote, “was to give a picture of society as a whole; give characters from every side; turn them towards society, not …
Jim the Boy
reviewed by Emily Banner
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
Earley writes with enviable confidence and laid-back style. His sentences are superbly crafted, full of vivid imagery and well-chosen detail, yet they flow with an easy grace, carrying the reader along...