Despite all that, the author makes the story come together and the book is a light fun summer read, especially for those who like dabbling in reincarnation stories. Being a historical fantasy with a spiritual sub-plot the story also brings past social mores, politics, and people from far-flung places to life, as the reader and protagonists rush about from ancient Egypt, through Russia, to other parts unknown.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen
In Bowen’s Enchanted August, Lottie and Rose are New York mothers of young children, dissatisfied at the way their lives are working out. Lottie’s husband seems to have lost interest in her. Rose’s husband is writing thrillers under a pseudonym, but her poetic talent has been overshadowed by her maternal role. The two women meet at the bulletin board of their children’s preschool, both drawn to a notice about a Maine cottage for rent for August.
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.
A review of Autoplay by Julie Babcock
It is tempting to say that Autoplay by Julie Babcock is a collection of poems about Ohio. It is and more. One way to put order to this book, a task that is almost if not totally impossible to do, is to separate the poems into categories. The Ohio poems would be one category. Another category would be poems dealing with childhood and adulthood.
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…
A review of Words Without Music by Philip Glass
There is so much to learn here, not just about Glass, but about ourselves—how to live, how to learn, how to create. Towards the end of the book, Glass talks about his work on his Cocteau Trilogy in which he says, of Cocteau, that he “is teaching about creativity in terms of the power of the artist, which we now understand to be the power of transformation” (378) The same can be said of Words Without Music.
A review of Finding Love by Carolyn Martinez
Martinez’ new book, Finding Love Again, is another book full of stories about people who have made a go of love on their second or more attempts. Though the stories are presented without too much editorial interruption, Martinez provides a kind of cumulative wisdom as the book progresses, building up to practical tips to go along with such a wealth of anecdotal advice that it’s hard not to feel like it’s entirely possible to find true love, at any age.
A review of The Chocolate League by Rah and Jahi Humphrey
During my daily reading, Osage County First Grade followed the adventures of The Chocolate League as they found fun summer things to do despite the closure of their park. Water balloon fights, and jump rope, and running games with chase and tag, pranks and dares, and visits to the candy store, parents sitting on the front stoop, hurrying home as dusk is falling fill pages illustrated with bright and colorful drawings provided by Fanny Liem.
A review of The Age of Magic by Ben Okri
However, if you let go of preconceptions about what a novel should be and how it’s meant to function, and read the work, instead, as a literary exploration of the unseen, beyond the world of logic and progression, then the work becomes much more powerful, yielding a transcendence that moves beyond the flow of ordered progression. The work moves in pulses; in moments of magic that become “elixirs, life renewed in the laboratory of Arcadia” or humanity’s highest self.
A review of Chez l’arabe by Mireille Silcoff
The eight stories in Mireille Silcoff’s collection, Chez l’arabe have a common theme, the shock and confusion we feel when faced with a nasty twist of fate. The central character of “Champ de Mars” is very human in her belief that the terrible pain she suffered over her child’s death “would absolve her from future hardship…she’d absorbed the blow, remained upright. Surely, for this, some kind of immunity?” Alas, life seldom works out that way, though some of Silcoff’s fictional characters fare better than others.