book Book Lovers Archives

Retro Book Review – The Best of C. L. Moore

Issue No. 247 ~ December, 2017

First published in the 1930s and 1940s, C. L. Moore’s collection of short stories embodies the otherworldly appeal of science fiction during that time, echoing America’s growing fascination with space exploration and its rapidly expanding multicultural awareness. But Moore’s stories were a level above the …

The Brick House

Issue No. 246 ~ November, 2017

  The brick house is not like any other house on the moor. Here the land stretches out greenly with its allochthonous grasses and the house stands matronly and alone on a rise on the wild sedge like an ancient dynamo and one Sitka spruce …

‘Hadriana in All My Dreams’ is a Sensuous Zombie Feast

Issue No. 241 ~ June, 2017

Zombies, Vodou, carnivals, mysteries of erotic passion and tales of unrequited love all flood the pages of René Depestre’s book, and it’s taken nearly thirty years to be released in English. Perhaps the English-speaking world wasn’t ready for the unapologetic sensuality of this book in …

Women Against the Apocalypse in The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch

Issue No. 241 ~ June, 2017

Thematically a dystopian novel, Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan is the author’s genuine way to fight against the apocalypse, against the fear of geological catastrophe and of Earth’s dying and turning into ashes and dirt. The story unfolds in our near future after Wars …

MARLENA by Julie Buntin

Issue No. 239 ~ April, 2017

          “Tell me what you can’t forget, and I’ll tell you who you are” is the that opens Marlena, the astonishing first novel by New York-based writer Julie Buntin. In the form of a confessional narrative, Buntin writes about the kind …

Book Review: The Painted Gun by Bradley Spinelli

Issue No. 238 ~ March, 2017

    In many ways a classic noir, Bradley Spinelli’s new novel, The Painted Gun, is told with enough excess and deadpan wit to keep it from feeling stale. David “Itchy” Crane is an information consultant, washed up ex-journalist, “ex” alcoholic (only halfheartedly) living alone …

The Unconcealing Art

Issue No. 193 ~ June, 2013

Reading Pamela Uschuk’s Wild in the Plaza of Memory, I imagine a particular coterie of writers and artists, all vying for attention, all yearning to be heard in the poet’s brain.

They’re Calling You Home

Issue No. 181 ~ June, 2012

Gabe Burke, the narrator of Doug Crandell’s fourth novel, is a writer, and a genial, philosophical and searching fellow, who loves nature and has an affinity for outcasts.