Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Leonardo da Vinci may be the best biography of the year. It has certainly received the most hype, and in this instance it rises to the level of approbation...
Category: Book Reviews
Hope Valley by John Manuel
★★★★☆ Regional novels published by small presses face great difficulty gaining traction in the massive world of publishing. Tens of thousands of books are published each year, most of them by major publishers who...
A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg
★★★☆☆ When Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut City on Fire was published in 2015, its hype preceded much discussion of its literary merit. At nearly 1,000 pages and earning Hallberg an unheard-of seven-figure book deal,...
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
★★☆☆☆ “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” In Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson begins at the beginning – the very beginning, as in 14 billion...
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “Pretty took the will to be so and the money to do it and the time to see to it and the sleep to maintain it, and Ella didn’t...
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
★★★★☆ With roughly 30 published books and more than 100 pieces in The New Yorker over the course of a half century, John McPhee is widely regarded a master and a pioneer of the...
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss
★★★☆☆ Nicole Krauss has taken a bold, introspective leap forward with her new novel Forest Dark: this is a difficult, densely intellectual book about memory, history, and the contemporary Jewish experience mixed with a Franz...
Unbound by John Shors
★★★★☆ John Shors’ thoughtful novels are all set in the exotic Far East, underpinned by universal themes of a search for love and the bonds that bring people together. Beneath the Marble Sky featured...
The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Channeling Thomas Pynchon at his most madcap and boasting an expert’s knowledge of literary theory, Laurent Binet’s The Seventh Function of Language is semiotics fanfiction. In 1980, when Roland...
