Book Review: The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rebekah Bergman’s THE MUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY is a spellbinding study of how people reckon with the most powerful force in our lives: time. Through touching and inventive vignettes spotlighting a handful of households inhabiting the same town, Bergman asks what any of us might risk or leverage to stop time, and the roles of our bodies, our memories, and life’s artifacts in the attempt.



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Book Review: How to Walk on Water by Rachel Swearingen

How to Walk on Water and Other Stories by Rachel Swearingen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I recently had the pleasure of hearing Rachel Swearingen read from her newest short fiction and immediately knew I was in the presence of power. This book is further proof. In her story collection HOW TO WALK ON WATER, Swearingen’s talent is on brilliant display, unearthing complex and cutting realities. Her unpredictable (and often delightfully unhinged) characters feel so damn real, you’ll be pulling out your high school yearbook to look up their names.



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Book Review: Lungfish by Meghan Gilliss

Lungfish by Meghan Gilliss

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Filled with awe over LUNGFISH by Meghan Gilliss. Striking, honest, and inventive prose. The dual question at the heart is one so many of us have worried at–how can you believe an addict?/how can you accept that the hurt they’ve caused is real? Gilliss approaches the answers without forgiveness, but not without tenderness, and always with structural brilliance and surprise.



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Book Review: Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Mapping the Interior is a powerhouse of a novella by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s astonishing to me how some writers can make such a gut-punch impact in 100 slim pages that others struggle to achieve after 400. This story is haunted by searing recursive imagery and faulty memory, lenses blurred by love and dissociation. Mostly limited to the walls of the family home, the setting heightens the urgency, accelerating with every page. The forces who watch from the edge of this story never fully reveal themselves, but we all know them, and they are terrifying–especially seen through the eyes of the narrator–just a boy who barely knows what has happened to him, and later, a man trying to make sense of it.



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Book Review: The Devourers by Indra Das

The Devourers by Indra Das

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What if you met a monster who opened your eyes to things no human was ever meant to know, to feel, to see? The Devourers takes us there. Das’ writing is gruesome and gorgeous in this blood-soaked tale. Wholly original, sensually charged, graphically violent, and yet also tender, this book reads like an ancient record of horrifying magic that should have been destroyed long ago, but exposes the fabric of our world. Sensational.



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Book Review: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I came to read Universal Harvester for the weirdness and 90’s nostalgia, almost left because I got so deeply creeped out, but ultimately stayed for John Darnielle’s gut-punch writing and intimate portraiture of midwestern people in all their banality and strangeness. This novel is tough to classify. It reads sort of like horror, but it’s really not–as disturbing as it still is. This is more of a slow burn, a literary haunting, and I appreciate Darnielle’s subtle hand navigating it all. A fantastic novel.

P.s. Had no idea that John is the frontman for The Mountain Goats until I glanced at the bio at the end! Wow John, leave some talent for the rest of us! 🙂



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Book Review: Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe

Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe

Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This novel makes an indelible impression, and it is so, so good. This book was recommended to me over a decade ago and has been sleeping since then on my bookshelf, waiting for the right moment. When the moment came, I tore through it in two days, totally transfixed at Howe’s storytelling–powerful, intimate, surprising. The way Howe approaches the ideas of legacy, birthright, redemption, and healing over the centuries simply blew me away.



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Book Review: Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Summerwater by Sarah Moss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sarah Moss is a master of close third person perspective. In this novella that rotates between different strangers’ perspectives while on a dismal, rainy holiday in Scotland, we become so tightly entwined in the idle thoughts of our characters that it’s almost disorienting, nearly uncomfortable. I admire the way Moss understands and explores human flaws. In way of plot, there’s little, but that’s not the point. The point is: What if you could see and understand how everyone was thinking, all at once? It’s a power I’m sure I don’t want to have, but I’m confident that Moss has it.



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Book Review: Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Summerwater by Sarah Moss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sarah Moss is a master of close third person perspective. In this novella that rotates between different strangers’ perspectives while on a dismal, rainy holiday in Scotland, we become so tightly entwined in the idle thoughts of our characters that it’s almost disorienting, nearly uncomfortable. I admire the way Moss understands and explores human flaws. In way of plot, there’s little, but that’s not the point. The point is: What if you could see and understand how everyone was thinking, all at once? It’s a power I’m sure I don’t want to have, but I’m confident that Moss has it.



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Book Review: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I’ve read Tennessee Williams’ breakout masterpiece many times, and even taught it to high school students for a couple years. But it’s been a while, and I wanted to see if it was still good. If possible, I think it’s even gotten better. The fragility of hope, the way regret will always find us, the illusions we believe… it’s all here. A pillar of American Theater.



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