book review

Whatever Happened to That Amazing British Punk Band Buzzcocks?

Whatever Happened to That Amazing British Punk Band Buzzcocks?

Steve Diggle’s Buzzcocks autobiography Autonomy is a refreshing take in an era when punk’s political and social consequences tend to be over-analyzed.

Antonia Hylton’s ‘Madness’ Illuminates the Shadows of Racial Injustice

Antonia Hylton’s ‘Madness’ Illuminates the Shadows of Racial Injustice

Madness is a scathing indictment of how Black Americans are disproportionately affected by mental health stigmas, inadequate care, and systemic neglect.

Neal Stephenson’s Thriller ‘Polostan’ Is a Wild Ride Through 1930s America

Neal Stephenson’s Thriller ‘Polostan’ Is a Wild Ride Through 1930s America

Neal Stephenson’s thrilling and slow-burn historical thriller Polostan presents the 1930s as a calamitous carnival ride building inexorably toward Hiroshima.

Work Is a Funny Thing in Adelle Waldman’s ‘Help Wanted’

Work Is a Funny Thing in Adelle Waldman’s ‘Help Wanted’

Nickel and Dimed meets a suburban big box store in Adelle Waldman’s unexpectedly humorous, dystopian workplace caper, Help Wanted.

The Journey Motif in ‘The Half-Life of Guilt’ Is No Guilt Trip

The Journey Motif in ‘The Half-Life of Guilt’ Is No Guilt Trip

There is no guilty pleasure in reading Lynn Stegner’s The Half-Life of Guilt. There is only pleasure.

Premee Mohamed’s Sci-Fi ‘We Speak Through the Mountain’ Is a Call for Cooperation

Premee Mohamed’s Sci-Fi ‘We Speak Through the Mountain’ Is a Call for Cooperation

Premee Mohamed’s We Speak Through the Mountain is a school story set in a future that looks startlingly close to our times, sentient fungal infections notwithstanding.

Ananda Lima’s Mystical and Metafictional Dance with the Devil

Ananda Lima’s Mystical and Metafictional Dance with the Devil

Poet and translator Ananda Lima’s debut fiction, Craft, is an absorbing mystical and metafictional dance with the Devil.

Naomi Novik’s Fantastical Feminist Worlds

Naomi Novik’s Fantastical Feminist Worlds

Award-winning speculative fiction writer Naomi Novik’s short stories are collected in Buried Deep, revealing the range of her fantastical feminist worlds.

‘Mettlework’ Excavates Myths of American Motherhood

‘Mettlework’ Excavates Myths of American Motherhood

Poet and author Jessica E. Johnson’s memoir Mettlework excavates myths of motherhood and girlhood in mining towns across America.

Championing Change: Eddie Ahn’s Graphic Memoir ‘Advocate’

Championing Change: Eddie Ahn’s Graphic Memoir ‘Advocate’

With his graphic memoir Advocate, Eddie Ahn invites readers to contemplate the complexities of pursuing social justice within a profit-driven world.

Strolling Down the Beatles’ Penny Lane and Through Strawberry Fields

Strolling Down the Beatles’ Penny Lane and Through Strawberry Fields

Jonathan Cott provides a concise overview of two of the Beatles’ greatest songs in his book Let Me Take You Down: Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever.

When Silence Roars: Rock Widows on When the Music Stops

When Silence Roars: Rock Widows on When the Music Stops

The interviews of rock widows in I Can’t Remember If I Cried reveal life for these women when their husbands exit the stage, the music stops, and the silence roars