Morais keeps the plot both basic—a young man’s journey to become a top French chef—and elegant, as the book’s three main locations (Mumbai, London, and Paris) add a touch of the exotic. Hassan tells us about himself more through his experiences in the kitchen than anywhere else. He lives, he loves, he mourns the losses of his parents and mentors, but his greatest love is his kitchen.
A review of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be by Ira Nayman
A glimpse into an original and unique humorous take on what is happening in society, especially technology-driven. It might be fiction but a tingle up my back finds it is so real.
Three Hundred Tang Poems translated and edited by Peter Harris
The poems convey a diverse range of moods and themes: love and longing, celebrations of nature and music and drinking ale, sorrow and melancholy, mysticism.
A review of Mastering Positional Chess by Daniel Naroditsky
We are given a good number of mainly modern games and positions, rather than the usual tired examples (or classics as they are sometimes called), with a fair number of them Daniel’s own. As you might imagine, Naroditsky’s annotations are especially candid and lucid when he comes to commentate on his own games.
A review of Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Though Millay plays to the gallery a bit, mindful that she has a bit of a reputation to keep up (Byron did it too), she is a poet of substance. This fine, generous selection of her poetry includes also Aria da Capo, a one-act verse drama about xenophobia and the suspicion of the stranger.
A review of Phoebe Nash, Girl Warrior by Justin D’Ath
Its fast pace and relatively simple vocabulary makes it perfect for struggling readers, but it’s also a pleasurable and powerful tale for good readers of all ages, coupling action with deep characterisation and enough plot complexities to keep readers reading until the end.
A review of The End of the Circle by Walter Cummins
These are bitter stories. All of the men, women, and children of the stories are imprisoned by circumstances. Redemption for the reader is in Cummins’s pitiless depiction of his doomed characters. Truth is what matters and he makes truth transcendent.
A review of Into the Yell by Sarah James
jpg” align = “left”> Throughout the book, the imagery is always powerful – drawing from myth, fairy tales, a painter’s palette, Blake, medical terminology, the beautician’s rooms, the seaside, and above all, the natural world.
A review of Briefs by John Edgar Wideman
Overall, the stories paint very clear pictures, sometimes reading more like prose poetry, sometimes like anecdotes, sometimes with surprising turns, sometimes just resonating in lush language.
A review of End of the Century by Chris Roberson
End of the Century is a fun mix of fantasy and science fiction. The apparent villain, one Huntsman, provides much of the tension in the novel and appears to be the well-known fantasy figure.