The author of Bread of the Lost talks about and reads lots of poems from her new poetry collection, discusses the notion of the ‘metaphorical feed’, the genesis of the book, the natural world as character, the wild animal beneath the…
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Rodin & Eros by Pascal Bonafoux
Most essays are centred on a particular work, and collectively they cover a period of about 40 years (1871-1911), for Rodin was always working, sketching even at the last. We learn some interesting things: for example, that The Kiss (1899) was inspired by Dante; that Rodin saw Nijinsky dance; of his affinity with Baudelaire, Mirbeau and Flaubert.
A review of Monster by Dave Zeltserman
We learn here that Mary Shelley’s novel was a fiction and a fabrication, Victor Frankenstein an unreliable narrator, to put it kindly. All in all, he’s a nasty, contemptible piece of work. Friedrich Hoffman is cast as an outcast, a wanderer and an avenger whose route towards payback takes in encounters with various Gothic grotesqueries: vampyres, werewolves, devil-worshippers, pseudo-Satanists (a la the Hellfire Club) and maybe even Dracula himself.
A review of The Songcatcher and Me by Ruth Latta
The term “songcatcher” is a beautiful word to describe the passion for archiving the old folk tunes that accompanied people as they came to settle in North America. The fascinating subtle differences of the different regions come to life.
A Review of Lifesaving Lessons: Notes From An Accidental Mother By Linda Greenlaw
She survived the storm that claimed the lives of the ill-fated fishing boat Andrea Gail’s crew (the Perfect Storm that inspired the book and film). But nothing prepared her for an even greater challenge—motherhood. Greenlaw chronicles her rapid journey from a self-sufficient, adventurous fisherman to the legal guardian of a teenager in Lifesaving Lessons: Notes from an Accidental Mother.
A review of Kicking in the Wall by Barbara Abercrombie
Could a full-length novel result from an accumulation of five minute exercises? Maybe an episodic one. Of the seventeen “Student Contributors” whose exercises Abercrombie includes, only two are working on novels; the others are working on memoirs.
A review of Elemental By Amanda Curtin
Elemental is an exquisite novel. Every word of it is tightly crafted and pregnant with possibility. It is self-referential and post-modern in the way it undermines time, creating a genetic and emotional link between characters in multiple times and places.
A review of Flora by Gail Godwin
An unreliable first person narrator allows for the same pleasures of deduction that one would find in a who-done-it. In Flora, readers must be like young Helen, sorting out the contents of a drawer, deciding what’s important enough to retain, and what to let go.
A review of The Woodcutter by Steven Bartholomew
The reader will see first hand what comprises the life of a writer. It is a lonely endeavour, one that can very quickly be speckled with controversy. The reader will almost be able to picture Dana sitting all alone in his hotel room, eating, and writing stories that will help readers realize how hard the lives of Native Americans really is.
A Review of No One Is Here Except All Of Us By Ramona Ausubel
This is not the type of novel you can expect to race through or finish in a weekend. Ausubel’s lyrical, beautiful language and disturbingly compelling imagery seize the reader almost immediately. Even if the reader wants to turn away at some of the more graphic scenes, they don’t turn away for long, as Ausubel manages to capture the best parts of the human spirit while not shying away from describing the atrocities of war.