Diary of a Murderer by Young-Ha Kim
★★★★☆ As a reader, I’m calibrated by default toward artful, literary prose, but then a particularly talented writer with a spare style comes along and rocks my boat in the best possible way. Korean...
Run Spot Run Book Reviews
Now, Now, Louison by Jean Frémon
★★★★☆ Even at their most monumental, Louise Bourgeois’ spider sculptures somehow feel nimble. At their largest, they tower to heights of thirty feet, and, cast in bronze, must boast a remarkable weight. Yet somehow,...
The Gulf by Belle Boggs
★★★☆☆ Belle Boggs’ first novel The Gulf takes a few interesting toys out of the toy chest, lines them all up, then abruptly sweeps them into the trash. The novel succeeds when humorously skewering...
Henry, Himself by Stewart O’Nan
★★★★☆ Returning to the fictional Maxwell family of Pittsburg, Stewart O’Nan’s Henry, Himself provides the backstory for two of the author’s previous, highly appreciated novels. The first, Wish You Were Here (2002), introduced the...
Crown Jewel by Christopher Reich
★★☆☆☆ The publishing industry is replete with high-quality novels featuring James Bond-like characters set in exotic locales. Tough, smart men—and the occasional woman protagonist—run into danger and win the day utilizing their smarts and...
Under Red Skies by Karoline Kan
★★★★☆ When a government’s social policy resembles that of a dystopian novel, you know you’ve found a gritty slice of life worthy of attention. In Under Red Skies, second child Karoline Kan recounts her...
The Wild Bunch by W.K. Stratton
★★★★☆ Fifty years ago, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch blasted onto the nation’s movie screens with the impact of a Gatling gun mowing down an advancing army. The cowboy movie (and really, all movie-making)...
Friend of My Youth by Amit Chaudhuri
★★★☆☆ Amit Chaudhuri upends the traditional homecoming tale with his seventh novel, Friend of My Youth. Meta-narrated by a character named Amit Chaudhuri, this short work tracks his begrudging return to Bombay to...
The Parade by Dave Eggers
★★★★☆ Dave Eggers’ The Parade is a concise, finely executed work of understated elegance. It’s the kind of extended parable that need not flood you with backstory about its principal characters, and is even...
