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★★★☆☆ Walter Mondale said that “Reagan’s policies are turning our industrial Midwest into a rust bowl” during a 1984 campaign rally in Cleveland. The press picked up and transformed the statement into the phrase...
★★★★☆ Spanning fifty years and three generations, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair tracks a network of artistic acquaintances through high-society London. Opening in Oxford during World War II, the novel loosely revolves around David Sparsholt, an...
★★☆☆☆ The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders disappoints. The title and the cover, a picture of the Dublin University library, suggest a look at some of the great libraries of the world. Instead, we...
★★★★★ Dear Rick, I have before me, waiting to be reviewed, your newest masterpiece (and, I do not use that word lightly), The Best Cook in the World. Subtitled “Tales from My Momma’s Table,”...
★★★☆☆ Folded Notes from High School by Matt Boren is a story about teenagers in the early 90’s. Through handwritten note format, the reader follows senior Tara Maureen Murphy, as well as her boyfriend,...
★★★★★ William T. Vollmann is one of the world’s best living writers, and his versatility and productivity is paramount: in the last four years, he has published over 2,500 pages across three books of varying...
★★★☆☆ U.S. Representative-turned-novelist Steve Israel delivers his second novel Big Guns, which carries the torch of the 2005 comedy film Thank You for Smoking—it’s the satirical tale of an industry that revels in its...
★★★★★ Debut novelists disproportionately tend to write about aspiring writers. This often indicates the author’s mere desire to write, rather than actually having something of value to express. But this need not always be...
★★★★☆ A Tyranny of Petticoats contains 15 action-packed historical short stories featuring ambitious and awesome women. With an eye-catching cover and subtitle (15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers, & Other Badass Girls), the reader...
