Michael
reviewed by Richard Weems
Issue No. 44 ~ January, 2001
Stephen is a dreary character who mainly stares at the wall and thinks, a pastime that even Andy Warhol would quickly find tedious.
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Book Lovers Archives
Your Name Here
reviewed by Rachel Barenblat
Issue No. 44 ~ January, 2001
Ashbery's poems reward a slant-reading in which one comes at the text from an angle, letting the words play across one's mind like insects on a pond.
Lies of the Saints
reviewed by Wendy Dorsel Fisher
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
With efficient prose, masterful pacing and dialogue so true and fluid you can almost hear it aloud in the room as you read, McGraw assembles plots as parables, conversation as plainsong...
The Last River
reviewed by Michael Burgin
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
The success of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm assured a man-made torrent of books in the suddenly lucrative “Man versus Nature, Nature Slams Man” genre. But, as Todd Balf’s new book shows, just because a work follows an industry …
The Rules of Engagement
reviewed by Wendy Kussrow
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
Bush is a connoisseur of the extended metaphor, able to plumb the depths of irony and emerge with the bittersweet truth of it unsullied by sarcasm or bitterness...
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg
reviewed by Michael Burgin
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
Giles Milton’s well-researched history provides an in-depth study of the battle between European nations – particularly the English and the Dutch – for access to and control of the East Indies spice trade. In reading Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, I only had two quibbles. First, the story …
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...
Practicing for Heaven
reviewed by Rachel Barenblat
Issue No. 42 ~ November, 2000
In her best poems, Levine's images are so clear that they approach benediction.
Monolithos: Poems, 1962 and 1982
reviewed by Elizabeth Knapp
Issue No. 41 ~ October, 2000
Among a handful of others, including Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Carl Phillips and Linda Gregg, Gilbert is one of the foremost contemporary poets on myth.
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom
reviewed by Richard Weems
Issue No. 41 ~ October, 2000
It’s almost too easy to start out this review with a metaphor based on a line from a story in this book. Never mind that it’s a line from the best story in here (“The Harvest”) and that it seems ample: “I leave a lot …