The Dark Stuff by Donald S. Murray
★★☆☆☆ Sub-titled “Stories From the Peatlands,” The Dark Stuff is far too textbook-like and not appealing enough for the casual reader. The facts are very nice but the writing does not resonate: it just...
Author: John Formy-Duval
Anesthesia by Kate Cole-Adams
★★★★☆ Anesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness “explores perhaps the most brilliant and baffling gift of modern medicine: the disappearing act that enables doctors and dentists to carry out surgery and...
Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz
★★★★★ “So, 007 is dead.” “Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” The suit had kept its shape, M reflected. It was the man lying there, dripping wet and lifeless, who had lost his. Ian Fleming...
Bunk by Kevin Young
★★★★☆ Kevin Young’s Bunk is an absolutely delightful, well-researched journey through the minefields of “Hoaxes, Humbugs, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News.” From the public’s gullibility that made P.T. Barnum rich to Internet trolls,...
In the Hurricane’s Eye by Nathaniel Philbrick
★★★★★ The final installment in Nathaniel Philbrick’s Revolutionary War trilogy may be the strongest yet. First, Bunker Hill covered the opening salvoes of what came to be a protracted war of attrition. Then Valiant Ambition explored the...
Old Demons, New Deities, edited by Tenzin Dickie
★★★★☆ Tibet, despite its difficulties, is producing extraordinary writers. The groundbreaking Old Demons, New Deities stands as the first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan literature. Edited and introduced by Tenzin Dickie, these twenty-one stories...
The Witch Elm by Tana French
★★★★☆ ‘Tis a grand day when Irish writer Tana French releases a new novel into the world! The Witch Elm is her first standalone story after five brilliant Dublin Murder Squad mysteries. She just...
The Forbidden Place by Susanne Jansson
★★★★☆ A book, television show, or movie set somewhere in Scandinavia leads the reader or viewer to expect dark, foreboding landscapes and ominous, threatening events. Susanne Jansson’s sparkling debut novel The Forbidden Place fulfills...
American Journal: Fifty Poems of Our Time, selected by Tracy K. Smith
★★★☆☆ Poetry exists in the ears of the beholder. Sound—listened to out loud or internally—grabs one first. As the words wrap into our consciousness, we begin to feel their depth and value. We move...
