Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
★★★★★ As a child, Hope Jahren spent hours in her father’s science laboratory, and from her mother she inherited a love of language. These earliest influences find an auspicious union in Lab Girl, Jahren’s...
Run Spot Run Book Reviews
The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan
★★★★☆ Timothy Egan’s The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero is a captivating biography of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867) and his indispensable contributions to Irish-American identity. Meagher’s incredible life is...
The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt
★★★☆☆ Particularly revered by Julio Cortazar, Roberto Arlt’s The Seven Madmen is a peculiar sort of social commentary. The story opens with the weak-willed Remo Erdosain being accused of stealing 600 pesos from his...
Stealing Games by Maury Klein
★★★★☆ In 1911, baseball was transforming itself from the dead ball era to a more modern, open game. The introduction of the cork-centered ball in 1910 resulted in hits that traveled farther and faster....
Dimestore: A Memoir in Stories by Lee Smith
★★★★★ Thank you, Louis Rubin, professor of English Literature at Hollins College and the University of North Carolina and founder of Algonquin Books. Lee Smith has fulfilled the talent you saw in her: “But...
And the Sun Stood Still by Dava Sobel
★★★☆☆ Dava Sobel is a remarkable writer of scientific biography; she is a serviceable writer of drama. And the Sun Stood Still is a two-act play that captures the meeting between Nicolaus Copernicus and...
Better Living Through Criticism by A.O. Scott
★★★★★ It is difficult to critique a book on criticism without entering into the realm of giddy, reflective post-modernism. Yet, Better Living Through Criticism is unflinching in this regard, acting as a book about...
Poems by Ron Rash
★★★★★ Before Ron Rash was known as a writer of dazzling novels, he was a very highly regarded poet whose work appeared in journals such as the New England Review, Sewanee Review, Carolina Quarterly,...
Man on Fire by Stephen Kelman
★☆☆☆☆ There’s footage out there in the video-streaming digital ether of a British journalist doing a feature on the renowned Indian strongman Bibhuti Nayak. Nayak boasts a higher, enlightened harmony with his body and...
