What I’m Reading…

Book Review: Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory by Richard Powers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I knew this book would eventually come for me. I picked it up and put it down at bookstores so many times, but recently an acquaintance put it directly into my hands, so I knew it was time. Heavy, mesmerizing, built tree ring by tree ring, OVERSTORY reminds us of how swiftly change comes, how irreversible harm can be, how time moves both torrentially and imperceptibly, and how human lives are interlocked with forests in ways we are still reaching to understand. Powers’ message is clear: the precious diversity of trees is something we ignore at our peril and surrender to as part of the path to transcendence and survival as a species. (Before you scoff, check: are you leaning against, standing upon, eating from, reading from, or breathing from something made by a tree?)



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Book Review: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


ATMOSPHERE by Taylor Jenkins Reid depicts so many things so well. Sustained and complex emotional tension, workplace dynamics with a close-knit team working under high stakes, 1980s American culture, the mystical awe surrounding NASA… Even though the majority of the novel takes place on the ground, this compelling love story is powered by rocket fuel. 🚀



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Book Review: Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence by Pope Leo XIV

Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity): On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence by Pope Leo XIV

One of the most important, extensive, intentional, and well-reasoned moral arguments of our time. The spiritual rationalization leans on centuries of chronicled Catholic thought, but this encyclical is also radically inclusive in its urgent discussion of how global culture touches every human being on Earth–each of whom, Leo reasons, is worthy of love, protection, and the fulfillment of a flawed human life.



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Book Review: Hotline by Benjamin Percy

Hotline by Benjamin Percy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have a supernatural affinity for grisly vampire stories, so I would call Benjamin Percy’s HOTLINE a guilty pleasure. However, no guilt was felt, so I’ll just call it a pleasure. Gory, sneaky, and brilliantly leveraging the haunted quality of Midwestern decay, this is one you can gulp down all in one go. Drink up!



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Book Review: Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham

Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


SWIM HOME TO THE VANISHED journeys to a place that feels inescapable, bizarre, unknowable, and yet instinctually familiar. Multilayered and surreal, this novel challenges perception and resonates viscerally with feelings that most of us resist, bury, or look away from. Animal and human, living and dead, enemy and relative, obliterating and welcoming–these lines blur from beginning to end in the keen disorientation of grief that has claws, gills, and teeth. A sensational debut.
Basham’s narrative threads are knotted up tight, daring us to tug at them to see what yields.

We need more books like this: literary experiences that demand an active intellectual and emotional investment from the reader to reach understanding.



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Book Review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Why don’t we have more epistolary novels? The experience of Virginia Evans’ THE CORRESPONDENT is a satisfying puzzle, reminding us that the communications we leave behind, no matter how incidental, are echoes. They reflect the broad brushstrokes of who we are. Our messages to and from other people all shape us incrementally and this novel captures that so deftly, and in a way that feels very alive.



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Book Review: Tiny Nightmares – Very Short Stories of Horror, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror by Lincoln Michel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Five enthusiastic stars for Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror. Literary rockstars stalk this creepy little pink book with glowing eyes and slippery turns. The best horror holds fear, beauty, sickness, humor, and truth altogether at once, and that’s exactly what this collection does. So many surprises. Each brief story is like a little scream. This book is what would happen if Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark grew up and got an MFA. (But no less darkly pleasurable.)



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Book Review: The Serviceberry – Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A gentle but powerful essay that will endure. I like to think we’ll look back on it and say, “This was part of what realigned the thinking, strengthened the people’s hearts, and spurred the creativite call to arms to make the changes that we did. And look what it’s done. Look at our beautiful world.”

All Flourishing is Mutual.



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Book Review: Vigil by George Saunders

Vigil by George Saunders

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


VIGIL brings us more Saunders ghosts and not-ghost-ghostlike things, but this time in a hyper-intimate scope that reminds me both of Our Town and A Christmas Carol but is something else entirely. I laughed aloud and fought back tears, nodded in familiarity, and sparked with rage. Such a challenging moral confrontation of a book that also remains viscerally grounded. I’m thirsty for true originality and strangeness in my reading. VIGIL delivers it in spades.



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Book Review: The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Jasmin Kirkbride’s THE FOREST ON THE EDGE OF TIME is wonderfully ambitious. This is a book that believes anything could be possible, and in that way it functions as its own piece of time travel, rewriting the script of our future thinking to have faith in small, persistent, collective actions. The technology is fantastically quirky and the emotion real… I like how well Kirkbride captures the way banality and sustained effort are just as key to transformative breakthroughs as genius is. Lovely book.



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