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.
Category: Non fiction reviews
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.
A review of Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley
Blakeley, a thirty-two year old Oxford-educated economist/journalist, says that liberal democracies under capitalism are not true democracies. As things stand now, government and capital work together to help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. True democracy is economic democracy, in which citizens not only vote but also have real control over their lives.
A review of Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
Sophie Gilbert does some major uncovering in this book, digging deep into the culture’s recent past to unearth the filthy White underbelly that lies beneath. Part archeologist, part pallbearer, she exhumes the back story and brings it kicking and screaming into the light of day. Gilbert writes, “In 1995, a self-help tsunami of a book titled, innocently, The Rules, advised women who wanted to get married to look to 1950s feminine mores for guidance.”
A review of The Intersection of Poetry and Jungian Analysis Through Metaphor by Regina Colonia-Willner
The connection between poetry and Jungian analysis is clearly presented; however, a reader would be justified in coming away from this book with two ideas: that the book is aimed more at psychoanalysts, not poets, despite the extensive references to poets’ thoughts and citations from their work, and that the link between poetry and Jungian analysis is less a link and more a continuous flow, as they infuse each other.
A review of The Hole in Your Life by Bob Rich
Bob Rich is an expert on the subject. He has been a psychotherapist for over 30 years, both in a clinical practice and through extensive volunteering of his services in multiple forums. He also has firsthand experience of the most intense kind of grief, having recenly experienced the loss of his own daughter Natalie to liver cancer in December 2024. The Hole in Your Life, Rich’s 20th book, is dedicated to Natalie and draws heavily on both personal experience and Rich’s extensive clinical understanding of the many pathways grief can take.