Book Review
Daughters of Muscadine
Monic Ductan’s relationship-focused short story collection "Daughters of Muscadine" traces a small town’s triumphs and tragedies. Small towns can be comforting and oppressive—a source of connection, but also the root of larger...
Book Review
Is There God after Prince?
Peter Coviello reflects on myriad opportunities for connection through critical engagement with the arts in his intriguing essay collection "Is There God after Prince?" The collection is separated into five sections. The first,...
Book Review
Sordidez
Indigenous culture is at war with imperialism in E. G. Condé’s haunting novella "Sordidez". In a future ravaged by climate disaster and biochemical warfare, Puerto Rico is caught in the new cold war between China and the United States...
Book Review
The Free People's Village
A punk rock teacher is embroiled in a major protest movement in Sim Kern’s involving speculative novel The Free People’s Village. Maddie is an English teacher. She has a crush on Red, who is trans and nonbinary. Red lives in the Lab,...
Book Review
The Pirates' Code
Arguing that pirates did more than lawlessly pillage the high seas, Rebecca Simon’s fascinating book The Pirates’ Code reveals their rules of engagement—and the steep consequences of eschewing these. There were heavy implications...
Book Review
What's Next?
The emotional, provocative stories collected in What’s Next? concern the apprehension that accompanies change. There is one echoing question in the throes of transformation—a question that can linger and settle in the bones, a...
Book Review
Dragon's Way
Dragon’s Way is an epic historical novel in which Vikings battle with Saxons for control of medieval Albion. The Great Heathen Army marches on in Ian McKay Nunn’s medieval historical novel Dragon’s Way. Hygel, son of Guthorm,...
Book Review
What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World
In her memoir "What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World", librarian Dorothy Lazard reflects on her childhood through the neighborhoods of California’s Bay Area. As a girl in St. Louis, Lazard would often wander her...