The authors of Mastering Chronic Pain talk about their new book and why they wrote it, the importance of empowering readers, biggest misconceptions about pian, how they began collaborating and what makes for a succesful collaboration, what’s in the pipeline and more.
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of How to Write a Novel edited by Aaron Burch
The beauty of How to Write a Novel is two-fold. First, all of its readers will walk away having learned something about writing, even if they don’t mean to. Second, its readers will walk away wanting to write and revise something, which is the mark of a good teacher, good workshop, good craft book. Editor Aaron Burch and his friends challenge readers to consider their own hobbies and how the principles behind them relate to writing. After closing the book, I wondered, what does writing have in common with volleyball? Or Pokémon? Or singing? Or video editing? I knew I had to write in order to find out.
A review of Sodomy’s Solicitations by Joseph J. Fischel
The book is erudite, playful at times, and well-argued. But whether these two relatively straight-forward propositions require so much theorizing and intricate prose is debatable, at least outside the groves of academe, where the author writes from a perch at Yale. One can imagine functionaries in the current White House looking at this book and immediately barking out orders to cut federal funding for New Haven.
A review of Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist by Richard Munson
Throughout this biography, Munson makes clear that Franklin’s scientific engagement with the world is a perpetual touchstone. No matter where he is on the planet—striving in his early life in the states, representing the states in England, working as a wartime ambassador in France, or traversing the ocean in between—Franklin is continuously scientifically inquisitive, continuously meeting and corresponding with other investigators, continuously inventing, and continuously devising and refining experiments.
A review of Exiles in New York City by Philip T. Yanos
One thing is clear: deep journalistic inquiry, such as Yanos’ Exiles in New York City, sheds much-needed light on a social morass that has been with us far too long. His reportorial zest, coupled with an inspiring sense of humanity and deep inquiry, is present on every page of this eye-opening book. This is a book about how we choose to live now, even when some of our lives are sequestered, shaded from prying eyes behind a meshwork of barbed wire fence.
A review of Capitalism and its Critics by John Cassidy
Should Cassidy’s book be summarized to make it more digestible to a public that likes a quick read? No. Cassidy’s book is a reader-friendly book that takes readers on a journey from the Levellers and Diggers of the English Civil War, to Trump’s America. By selecting an historical figure as the focus of each chapter, he gives readers a human story and makes the past come alive.
A review of Bequeath By Melora Wolff
Bequeath is a project of probing questions from the past and reifying them in the present through the burden of worry Wolff inherited in girlhood from her mother and felt, but never completely understood, even in adulthood. Her essays are the incarnation of that “delicately durable circuit” established in childhood sending into her “consciousness each day the sanctity of memory.”
Cavalier Perspective: Last Essays 1952-1966 by André Breton
As we might expect, a wistful, retrospective tone runs through many of these pieces, sometimes subtly and under the surface, and sometimes quite explicitly. In one 1952 essay, “You Have the Floor, Young Seer of Things…”, Breton laments his inability to appreciate the new trends in postwar painting and contrasts that with the enthusiasm he felt in his youth for new art.
A review of What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan
For me, the book resonates on a deeply personal level. Having studied Austen in graduate school, I’ve long been fascinated by the quiet radicalism beneath her polished surface. While she never staged open rebellion against Regency norms, her fiction hums with a subtle critique of its social constraints—expressed through irony, narrative silence, and the moral gravity of her heroines’ choices. Mullan illuminates this with expert precision, showing how Austen’s critical eye is woven into every level of her storytelling.
A review of Open House: Conversations With Writers About Community edited by Kristina Marie Darling
This essay collection is of particular use to educators, with many of the essays operating from the perspective of professors in classroom settings, and thus including their strategies for engaging students in community. But there are also prescient reflections outside of the classroom or workshop, such that any reader with a passion for writing and poetry might find new perspectives and useful tools.