The author of The Guardans reads a number of poems from her book and talks about how it has has come together, about the key themes in the book: masks, the roles and genetics we inherit, about poetry as archeology, on…
Category: Literary Fiction Reviews
A review of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
This is a lovely, easy to read, and powerful book. The simplicity of its narrative belies a far deeper and more complex underlying truth, and this new Faber & Faber edition draws attention to how fresh and relevant the book remains to a modern audience.
A review of Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor
O’Connor portrays Emily sensitively and sympathetically. Writers will identify with her need for peace and solitude, co-existing with a yearning for understanding and closeness. Emily’s girlhood friend, Susan Gilbert, who married her brother, Austen, was her closest friend.
A review of Music for Wartime by Rebecca Makkai
The theme of Makkai’s collection seems to be the surprising, unusual, surrealistic, and supernatural. It is probably no accident that she starts the collection with a fable, since fables are by definition about the unusual and supernatural. The pogrom/war/ethnic cleansing stories involve startling occurrences, and so do the stories set in contemporary America.
Beth Spencer on Vagabondage
Award winning novelist, poet and nonfiction writer Beth Spencer reads from and talks about her latest poetry book,Vagabondage. In this candid conversation we discuss her own journey, the idea of “leaving no trace”, about aging, displacement, homelessness, her writing processes,…
A review of Flash Fiction International edited by James Thomas, Robert Shapard and Christopher Merrill
“Night Drive” by Rubem Fonseca of Brazil is a Stephen Kingish story that shows the Mr. Hyde side of a seemingly benign Dr. Jekyll. Another story that I admire, “The Snake” by Eric Rugara of Kenya, is, on the surface, a picture of family cooperation to band together promptly to rid their home of a snake. It may also be a metaphor for the power of united action against any creeping threat. With eighty-six stories to choose from it is easy for a reader to find something s/he likes in this collection.
Graham Stull on The Hydra
The author of The Hydra reads from and talks about his new novel and where his ideas for it came from, about his biologist turned Frankenstein protagonist Brian Matterosi, on viral engineering, genre fiction, indie publishing, distopias, population and ecology,…
Ben Okri on The Age of Magic
Ben Okri joins us live from the Sydney Writers Festival to read from and talk about his latest novel The Age of Magic and what inspired it, its characters, on the true nature of magic, on the book’s themes incuding what Goethe calls des…
A review of Entrevoir by Chris Katsaropoulos
The book feels earnest. It pulls the reader along. From the beginning Jacob’s transformation/journey is about the role of artist as seer and priest in the world. Ideas of reincarnation, Identity, and the Self or Cosmic spirit all come together in an attempt to sing of life and time.
Joan Schweighardt on The Accidental Art Thief
The author of The Accidental Art Thief reads from and talks about her new novel and the inspiration for it, her quirky “under-the-radar” characters, her gorgeous Albuquerque setting, some of her key themes, on keeping secrets, her new work in progress, and…