Play the Man by Jim Gavin
from Middle Men: Stories by Jim Gavin S&S – 2-13 As my son would say, “seriously?” This collection is dominating my life right now, and I picked it up almost by accident at a trade show, so, yeah, seriously.…
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Month: September 2012
When We Fell In Love – Antoine Wilson
It is supremely cool that Mr. Wilson digs Auster, especially the NY Trilogy, as it too shaped me as a human and writer.…
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Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents The Art of the Short Story
I have to be honest, I have never really read The Paris Review, and that’s not a big deal. Right? I just don’t remember to read it.…
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Married Love by Tessa Hadley
Lottie is 19. Over the breakfast table she announces she’s getting married. Nobody knew she had a boyfriend. She didn’t really.…
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Three Strong Women By Marie Ndiaye – The Third Woman
When Khady realized that her husband of three years might be dead, racing next door for help with tears streaming down her eyes, she still for a moment thought about how this was a wasted opportunity for her to conceive her first child.…
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Dare Me by Megan Abbott
It will forever mystify me, why I have not read Ms. Abbott before now. There is a moment right at the start of a novel, usually twenty or thirty pages in, where you say to yourself, “oh, I love this.”…
Read MoreIs This A Good Review?
Here at the blog we always review what we want, and rarely get pitched anything. Well, that’s a lie; we get pitched stuff all the time.…
Read MoreA Blogger Looks at Book Reviews
There’s been lamentation in the streets about the abandonment of book coverage by many newspapers. The economic model of publishing a newspaper is troubled in our time.…
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NW by Zadie Smith Conclusion
DH: The last half of NW, almost exactly, comprises the sections “Host”, which I believe is the largest division in the book, and two smaller sections.…
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Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
It’s hard to write a book about the end of world and make the reader feel good about it. I avoided this book for a while, it’s whimsical cover, and the seemingly wafer thin plot.…
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When We Fell In Love – David Abrams
JC: If you haven’t heard anything about David Abrams’s new novel Fobbit, releasing this week, you must just be returning from your Summer in the Hamptons, or some other escape from the real world.…
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Redbud by Molly Ringwald
from When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald Ms. Ringwald takes the reader up to thirty thousand feet with this second story, Redbud.…
Read MoreOn Being Voted Most Helpful
I’ve always assumed that the reviews voted most helpful on Amazon are positive reviews. And it’s also true that among amateur book reviewers, a critical review is unlikely.…
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