So, why start the collection with outer space? With a childhood self looking up to the night sky in awe? For me, the undercurrent of this book is an older narrator looking back at a young self who is perplexed by an unknown or hidden world. This makes for a relatable sensation: the older self understanding something the younger self didn’t grasp. Maybe that’s why beginning with the moons is so beautiful.
Category: Non fiction reviews
A Review of Identifying the Pathogen by Jennifer Militello
Inquisitive and morbid, this body of work breathes new life into the corpse of Anna Morandi Manzolini, a woman largely forgotten by the march of time. Militello preserves Morandi Manzolini’s cadaver with the utmost precision, refusing to let the world forget her and all women alike who have persisted in the face of systemic gender injustice.
A review of Bring Us Home From Sorrow by Joanne Fedler
Though Bring Us Home From Sorrow is a book that moves through death and deep grief, it is expansive and even in its darkest moments, uplifting. It reminds us that none of us are alone – that we are all held in our grief by the communities we belong to and the unique forms of grief and love that everyone experiences.
A review of The Millionaire Mop: Your Path to Cleaning Business Wealth by Nats Cleaning
One of the book’s strongest features is its straightforward structure. It doesn’t assume readers have business experience or a large budget. Instead, it walks through how to launch with minimal investment and begin earning quickly—framing early traction as a confidence-builder and a way to reinvest into the business.
A review of My Little Donkey and Other Essays by Martha Cooley
In clean, unaffected and polished prose, Cooley invites us into her world, and many of her essays follow a braided structure that pull together threads on people, animals, age and aging, accidents, and flukes and family, as well as other moments worthy of reflection. But Cooley doesn’t limit herself to braided threads. Two of her essays deploy a flash-like form in ideas and well-researched facts that seem unrelated and dot the page – until they kaleidoscopically connect.
A review of Wild Inside by Kathleen Lockyer
Wild Inside is a thoughtful, gentle call to parents to be present with their children from their earliest years, to make “meaning of our childhoods and our parenting journey” through the “most ordinary moments” of tactile, intimate engagement with the natural world. This is because what people do, what they are occupied with, wires their brains. Through tactile, visual, and auditory experience, we learn to make predictions, make connections, and bring our observations into context.
A review of Shirley Clarke: Thinking Through Movement by Karen Pearlman
Shirley Clarke: Thinking Through Movement explores many of Clarke’s films in depth, showing the ways in which she uses situation, context, space, time, real vs scripted life, and a networked and collaborative approach to working that focuses on the filming process itself as the main point of creativity rather than a pre-conceived plan. The result is a powerful way of looking at dance and filmmaking that can be applied to any kind of artistic endeavour.
A review of Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time By Gavin Francis
Francis’ impeccable prose style takes us into the cinematic tour de force of the time and ideas of Sir Thomas Browne that make us appreciate the world we live in with specialized medicine and technological advances. At the same time make us weary of the future by ending on the subject of mortality.
An interview with by Sahar Swidan and Matthew Bennett
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.
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.