Check out the latest book reviews of independently published books.

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Book Review

Beautiful Unbroken

by Lisa Romeo

Each year, Graywolf Press publishes the winner of the Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction, and neither the publisher nor the Breadloaf Writers Conference (which administers the Prize) has put forward a wrong foot yet. Mary Jane Nealon’s... Read More

Book Review

Moby-Dick in Pictures

by Julie Eakin

But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He’s all a magnet! To borrow from Herman Melville, the “accursed” things that attract us aren’t always... Read More

Book Review

Furniture with Soul

by Meg Nola

Do we think of the psyche when we see a piece of furniture? Generally not, but perhaps we should. Looking beyond obvious skill and technical finesse, Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft offers a more organic... Read More

Book Review

Wyatt

by Lawrence Kane

Wyatt is a thief. While he’s had a long and successful career, due in large part to the meticulousness with which he plans his capers, advances in technology are making it harder for him to earn a living without getting caught. When... Read More

Book Review

Fantastic Women

by Jessica Henkle

In Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s “The Young Wife’s Tale,” the narrator asks, “But why should Eva think of those old stories? … Could enchantment take hold among the recycling bins, the sickly houseplants, the student-loan... Read More

Book Review

Bear Down, Bear North

by Karen Rigby

Winner of the 2010 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, "Bear Down, Bear North" gathers thirteen stories about the vulnerabilities of the heart as well as on family loyalty enduring in spite of discord. The Alaskans portrayed,... Read More

Book Review

When She Woke

by S. Hope Mills

“When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign.” In Hillary Jordan’s dystopian novel When She Woke, Hannah Payne is a Red, a criminal. Chroming—the genetic altering of skin... Read More

Book Review

So Good in Black

by Monica Carter

Although a decade has passed since Sunetra Gupta’s last novel, this lucid and mesmerizing masterpiece shows she has used every minute of that time wisely. Told in memories and fragments, it chronicles the history of a group of friends... Read More

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