Moby Dick by Herman Melville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Massive in so many ways.
View all my reviews
Book Review: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Category: Book Reviews
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?)
View all my reviews
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. 🚀
View all my reviews
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.
View all my reviews
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!
View all my reviews
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.
View all my reviews
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.
View all my reviews
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.)
View all my reviews
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.
View all my reviews
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.
View all my reviews