Posts tagged “reviews”
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USA Today reviews “There Are Things I Want You to Know”
June 21, 2011
“Writing in a memorably austere, flinty voice, Gabrielsson has produced neither a tell-all nor some “handmaiden to literary genius” emo-gusher. . . . Gabrielsson comes across as rigid, obsessed, and
humorless, but a fierce warrior in fighting for what she sees as justice. Not unlike Larsson’s own heroine.” —USA TodayTags: eva gabrielsson, lisbeth salander, reviews, stieg larsson, stiegandeva, there are things i want you to know, usa today
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Barbara Shoup reviews Sad Stories of the Death of Kings
March 17, 2011
Sad Stories of the Death of Kings brought [my childhood memories of Chicago] back to me—and more. “Fruit boots,” for example.
“Style of shoe popular in the 1950’s and 60’s, ankle-high suede shoes with crepe rubber soles conventionally known as desert boots. English Mods embraced desert boots made by Clarks and their popularity spread to the U.S. where they were labeled “fruit boots” because of their perceived popularity with perceived homosexuals.” (Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.)
“There they are,” Jimmy said. “I told you she’d be here.”
Standing halfway down the block were two girls, both wearing black scarves around their heads, navy blue pea coats, short black skirts with black tights and black fruit boots. One of them was smoking a cigarette.
“Bad Girls,” said Roy.
“I hope so,” said Jimmy Boyle.
I wasn’t a bad girl. I was too scared. But I knew those girls, and Barry Gifford got them just right. He got everything right. —Award-winning YA author Barbara Shoup
Tags: barbara shoup, barry gifford, fiction, fruit boots, reviews, sad stories of the death of kings, ya
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NY Times on French edition of Eva Gabrielsson memoir
February 18, 2011
Ms. Gabrielsson does not claim to be Larsson’s ghostwriter for the Millennium series, which has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide, but writes that he could not have written it without her. “Out of our struggles, our commitments, our travels, our passions, our fears, these books are the jigsaw puzzle of our lives,” she writes. “That’s why I cannot pinpoint exactly what, in ‘Millennium’ comes from Stieg and what comes from me.”
Tags: arts beat, eva gabrielsson, millenium, new york times, ny times, reviews, stieg larsson, there are things i want you to know
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A review of Barry Gifford’s work from Salon.com
February 9, 2011
“Mastering a subject and then moving on has been the story of Gifford’s life. His enormous body of work reflects a lifetime of experience and influences . . . Gifford writes about men and women of whom you ask, “Where do they go during the day?” And the answer is that they are the kind of people who always seem to show up after dark because they carry their own private night with them. You’ll be glad that you went along for the ride, but also glad that you have a kinder, saner world to return to.”
Tags: barry gifford, reviews, sailor & lula, salon.com
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“Revolutionary Violence and Ted Rall”: A review of The Anti-American Manifesto
January 19, 2011
“[Rall] is prolific writer of good sentences. He is a prolific drawer of bitterly ironic cartoons. He is a serious reporter. He is honest about his own failings and wandering ideology. And he has dusted off the r-word at exactly the right moment in American history. He wants a revolution. And I agree with him.” — Charles Young, ThisCantBeHappening.net
Tags: anti-american manifesto, reviews, ted rall
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Sailor & Lula reviewed in the New York Review of Books
November 19, 2010
“[Gifford] is a moving target, as omnivorous as he is prolific, having published poetry, novels, story collections, memoirs, biographies of William Saroyan and Jack Kerouac, art criticism, plays, screenplays, a libretto, and nonfiction monographs about horse racing and the Chicago Cubs. Even this kind of classification is inaccurate: his history of the Cubs is really a memoir, his poems read like prose, his prose like poetry. His most remarkable achievement to date, the Sailor and Lula saga, is equally hard to pin down. . . . “Like Romeo and Juliet only nobody dies,” Gifford writes at one point, though this is, again, somewhat misleading, since by the end of the saga very few characters have been spared a gruesome and abrupt death.
Tags: barry gifford, do the blind dream, fiction, memories from a sinking ship, nathaniel rich, new york review of books, reviews, sad stories of the death of kings, sailor & lula, wyoming
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Elegy Written on a Crowded Street review in San Francisco Bay Guardian
October 13, 2010
So it would seem that even a completely gentrified San Francisco offers writers a rich vein of noir opportunity. Yet the lone novelist today determinedly probing the dark side of San Francisco’s endless battle to clean up the streets is Peter Plate. Plate’s latest novel, Elegy Written on a Crowded Street (Seven Stories Press, 176 pages, $13.95), is his ninth noir novel in a hardboiled writing career that spans the era of out-of-control gentrification in the city.
With little fanfare or support, against the real life backdrop of police sweeps of the homeless and the start of the dot-com boom, Plate has produced a shelf of books that represent a lonely, yet noble and deeply radical literary effort to write noir crime fiction in which the criminals, not the cops, are the protagonists. Taken as a whole, they offer a compelling and defiant portrait of the psychic toll the disappearance of loved people, places, and opportunity from the city has taken on those left behind. — San Francisco Bay Guardian on Peter Plate
Tags: elegy written on a crowded street, fiction, peter plate, reviews, san francisco bay guardian
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Jesus of Nazareth reviewed at Patheos
July 27, 2010
From the Patheos review of Paul Verhoeven’s Jesus of Nazareth (article is the first search result at this link)
Imagine this movie trailer: from the director of ”Showgirls” and “Basic Instinct” comes his most revealing project yet—“RoboJesus.” One might expect such a…
Tags: jesus of nazareth, patheos, paul verhoeven, religion, reviews
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Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm reviews In Our Control
June 30, 2010
In Our Control doesn’t read like a scientific article but a wise and thoroughly researched expose on all aspects of contraception. Eldridge writes in a practical, often conversational format which should appeal to readers at all interest levels. … In Our Control should be kept on one’s bookshelf for reference next to Our Bodies, Ourselves and FLOW. — Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm’s review of In Our Control
Tags: birth, health, In Our Control, Laura Eldridge, reviews, women's health, women's issues
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Ms. Magazine reviews In Our Control
May 21, 2010
Laura Eldridge’s new book In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women (Seven Stories Press, 2010) isn’t kidding with that subtitle. The last time I remember reading so much detail about contraceptive options was poring over Our Bodies, Ourselves when I was in my 20s. … Eldridge learned women’s health writing at the side of the late women’s health advocate and activist Barbara Seaman, and it shows. She contextualizes her work with her own experience and preferences, but provides thorough documentation so that women can more easily make their own decisions. This is women’s health activism at its best. — Elizabeth Kissling, Ms. Magazine
Tags: barbara seaman, In Our Control, Laura Eldridge, ms magazine, reviews, women's health, women's issues
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Bad Shoes reviewed at Juxtapoz
May 19, 2010
Growing up in a home where my mother covered the floor of her closet with pumps, sandals, flats, and more shoes than Imelda Marcos could shake a foot at, it’s no wonder that at 25 my shoe collection is nothing to play with. Being that my closet is filled with heels ranging from 3 ½”- 5”, I was quite skeptical when I began reading Bad Shoes and the Women Who Love Them by Leora Tanenbaum. While I do not plan on trading in my Calvin Klein platforms for a pair of Aerosoles, I have been convinced to be a bit more practical when deciding which shoes to wear to work versus the ones to wear on date nights.
Leora Tanenbaum is no stranger to shining a light on some of the everyday issues that plague women in this seemingly modern age, her first three books dealt with slut-bashing, cat-fighting, and women reclaiming God. As a feminist writer, it seemed only natural for her to tackle to phenomenon of perfectly sensible women wearing shoes that are unhealthy in the name of fashion and feeling feminine. In the attempt to issue a much needed wake up call to the stilettoed masses, Tanenbaum enlists a bevy of experts on feet, fashion, and the Carrie Bradshaw wannabes who walk Manhattan in Louboutins to the detriment of their bodies. … Overall the book is not a call for us to burn our heels but for us to become more informed consumers. —M.I.S.S. at Juxtapoz
Tags: bad shoes, fashion, juxtapoz, leora tanenbaum, reviews, women's health, women's issues
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Bad Shoes reviewed in Venus Zine
May 11, 2010
After undergoing a surgery brought on by a fondness for cutely covered feet, feminist fashionista Leora Tanenbaum knew she had to change her bad shoe-wearing ways. Illustrated by Vanessa Davis, Tanenbaum’s Bad Shoes explains why women need to start putting their heads over their heels by learning the art of moderation. From the Venus Zine review of Bad Shoes and the Women Who Love Them
Tags: bad shoes, leora tanenbaum, reviews, vanessa davis, venus zine, women's health
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Glyphjockey on Barry Gifford’s Sailor & Lula novels
April 30, 2010
Life is short and my reading list long (currently on my third Mary Roach in a row - currently thinking up pot puns for that review, which will be shortly) and so I don’t actively seek out amazing anymore. The wheel of karma brings it to me. My sister bought me Sailor’s Holiday (the 3rd book in the series) as a Christmas request from me. It opens up with child sacrifice, migrates to pimps harvested for their organs and encounters with conjectured afterlife. Amplified from the original Wild at Heart, (the first book) and yet with the Gifford flavor all along; life’s mundane moments inherently contain enough reflectivity for him to provide insights.
Tags: barry gifford, fiction, glyphjockey, reviews, sailor & lula
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Racing While Black reviewed at The Complex
April 16, 2010
Even if you’re not an avid racing fan, we’re sure you’ve caught the grand oval spectacle know as NASCAR at least once in your life. After all, behind the NFL, it’s the second most-viewed sports league in the country. However, there’s one major difference between NASCAR and the rest of America’s pastimes: a startling lack of racial diversity. Leonard T. Miller’s book explains why. —The Complex
Tags: andrew simon, complex, leonard t miller, race, racing while black, reviews, sports
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The Old Garden reviewed at the Collagist
April 15, 2010
The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-yong (which you can start reading here, for free!) was just reviewed in the April 2010 issue of The Collagist. Take a look below.
Tags: collagist, fiction, hwang sok-yong, old garden, reviews, videos
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Racing While Black reviewed in Washington Post
March 2, 2010
From the Washington Post for February 28, 2010, a dual review of Mark Bechtel’s He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back and Seven Stories Press’s own Racing While Black:
… Bechtel paints an excellent portrait of these colorful racers and their Scotch-Irish culture, in which Rebel flags are not rare. So why on Earth were Leonard W. Miller, founder of Miller Racing, and his son, Leonard T. Miller — successful, educated members of the black elite — obsessed with NASCAR racing? It’s a question that perplexed their fellow African Americans, who regarded their quest as “a suicide mission into the country’s deepest pockets of racism.”
Tags: andrew simon, leonard t miller, race, racing while black, reviews, sports, washington post
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Harvard Law Record on Nader’s super-rich: “These 17 and some of their friends may indeed be the most realistic hope we have”
February 12, 2010
From the Harvard Law Record article by former “Nader’s Raider” Robert Fellmath, regarding Ralph Nader’s “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”:
The fun of reading this book is in joining the author’s fantasy, but punctuating it with our own tactics—what we would do to correct the world’s deviant path had we the resources and visibility of these 17. The characters in this book seek structural and leveraged change—advocacy for public budgets and laws and international agreements—that properly embody more than the exploitation of narrow self-interest. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has radically shifted ground and allowed (contrary to the judgment of the people’s democratic institutions) many billions of corporate and union money to directly influence elections, those interests with capital investment in current profitable enterprise—whether it be mining the seas, polluting the earth, or collecting medical benefits for power wheelchairs and Cialis on the backs of their grandchildren—will increasingly lock-in their self-protection and their imposed external burden on others. Their free ride, notwithstanding future costs, will be further and irretrievably calcified into public law.
Tags: articles, fiction, harvard law record, only the super-rich can save us, ralph nader, reviews, robert fellmath
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Daybreak reviewed at Rusty Lime
February 11, 2010
From Kim OJ at Rusty Lime, “a collective of bloggers brought together from all over the world in the interest of bringing you original stories, news, opinions and occasional relevance”:
… After reading Daybreak, I realized that though healthcare reform and emission reductions are extremely important, securing democracy is even more fundamental. What use is good legislation if the president can just ignore it? Chose not to enforce the laws, or break them himself? What Swanson advocates in Daybreak is that Congress enforce the Constitution by impeaching ANY president who fails to uphold it. Only by enforcing the Constitution can we expect presidents and others to uphold it.
… There is no doubt that Swanson is a progressive, but the main thesis of Daybreak does not belong on the fringe of the political spectrum, but should be at home across the broad middle of political ideologies that subscribe to democracy and the rule of law.
Tags: current events, david swanson, daybreak, politics/government, reviews, rusty lime
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10,000 Dresses reviewed at Rainbow Rumpus
February 5, 2010
Rainbow Rumpus — “the magazine for kids with LGBT parents” — has written not one, but two excellent reviews of Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray’s 10,000 Dresses: one for kids, and one for parents. Check them out, and congratulations yet again to Marcus and Rex!
Tags: 10000 dresses, lgbt, marcus ewert, rainbow rumpus, reviews, rex ray, ya
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Three Annie Ernaux books reviewed at Belletrista
January 8, 2010
“I find Ernaux to be one of the most important and essential writers of the human condition. Her memoirs about her childhood and her parents were compelling and insightful, even though their lives were not particularly unique or fascinating, and the raw emotions of the women in unrequited affairs in The Possession and Shame made me squirm in discomfort and empathy.”
Read the full discussion of The Possession, I Remain in Darkness, and A Man’s Place at Belletrista.
Tags: a man's place, annie ernaux, belletrista, fiction, i remain in darkness, possession, reviews, shame
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The Things We Do To Make It Home at Feminist Review
January 4, 2010
From Elanor J. Bader’s excellent review of The Things We Do To Make It Home, at Feminist Review:
When Beverly Gologorsky’s powerfully written and beautiful novel, The Things We Do To Make It Home, was first released in 1999, most U.S. residents weren’t thinking about war. The Vietnam conflict had ended decades earlier, the Cold War was over, and for at least a fraction of a minute, world peace seemed possible. Then 9-11 happened, and a world without armed conflict became the stuff of pipe dreams. In short order the U.S. was involved in two wars, fighting what many see as losing battles against terrorism.
This makes the re-release of Gologorsky’s novel especially important. Unlike war stories that focus only on the soldiers’ experiences, The Things We Do To Make It Home includes the lovers and children of numerous warriors—people who have no choice but to grapple with the physical and psychological aftereffects of military life when their loved ones return to civilian life. It’s gripping material, poetically rendered.
Tags: beverly gologorsky, feminist review, fiction, reviews, things we do to make it home
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Edward Lucas reviews Towers of Stone for The Economist
December 10, 2009
From the upcoming Economist review by Edward Lucas of Wojciech Jagielski’s Towers of Stone (as it appears on Lucas’s blog):
Formidable, useful in war and, though picturesque, impractical in peacetime, the stone towers that dot Chechnya’s mountains could be regarded as symbols of its people. Wojciech Jagielski’s book sets new standards for gritty reporting of Russia’s most miserable corner, and the dreadful damage done to it by both outsiders and the Chechens’ own leaders.
Tags: economist, edward lucas, history, journalism, reviews, towers of stone, wojciech jagielski
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Andrew Jaimieson at Pulp Pusher on Barry Gifford’s Port Tropique
December 8, 2009
From Andrew Jaimieson’s “Sweaty Noir” column at Pulp Pusher on Barry Gifford’s Port Tropique:
Originally published in 1980, Port Tropique makes a welcome return, its political relevance even more acute and topical for its absence. Its themes of corruption (politically and morally) and identity are strong and powerful, and, in these uncertain times, Gifford’s sweaty noir reflects the angst we feel.
Written in a lean and Spartan style, Port Tropique is cut from the same cloth as Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness and The Secret Agent (quoted from at the beginning of the book), Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana and John Le Carre’s The Tailor Of Panama … The thriller-styled plot is a patchwork of encounters and it’s easy to read this and feel disoriented by the lack of solid framework – that is pure Gifford. He bends chaos in an orderly fashion and produces a superb reading experience.
Tags: barry gifford, fiction, noir, port tropique, reviews
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Once You Go Back named best LGBT book of the year
December 3, 2009
Mattilda Berenstein Sycamore, author of So Many Ways To Sleep Badly, has chosen Douglas A. Martin’s Once You Go Back as her favorite LGBT-related book of 2009. Here’s what she says about it:
Remember that time in your life when you didn’t know if you would ever learn how to breathe? No, you knew you were breathing, but you wondered if it would ever feel like it was supposed to. Douglas Martin nails the claustrophobia of growing up, somehow succeeding at delivering an adult’s voice with a child’s awareness, a voice at once aloof and familiar. Martin steers clear of the typical nostalgia in order to convey a loneliness so intimate that even a catalog of deteriorating home life becomes something almost like hope. And, the best part is that he doesn’t fuck it up at the end with some kind of tidy closure – yay, thank you!
There’s still plenty of time to let Douglas A. Martin’s book become your favorite LGBT book of 2009 — get a copy of Once You Go Back from us today!
Tags: douglas a martin, fiction, lgbt, mattilda berenstein sycamore, once you go back, reviews
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The Others reviewed at Out In Print
December 1, 2009
… Seba Al-Herz’s prose is as sweet and dense as a mouthful of dates. It overpowers at first, but once you find its underlying rhythm, it carries you on a wave of sensuality. I tried to pick out a representative passage but they all sounded incomplete out of context, needing what came before and after to reveal the beauty of their complexity… The Others is a sumptuous feast of a read, challenging but well worth the time and thought. — Jerry Wheeler at Out In Print
Tags: fiction, jerry wheeler, others, out in print, reviews, seba al-herz
“reviews” Posts
- Jun 21, USA Today reviews “There Are Things I Want You to Know”
- Feb 18, NY Times on French edition of Eva Gabrielsson memoir
- Jan 19, “Revolutionary Violence and Ted Rall”: A review of The Anti-American Manifesto
- Oct 13, Elegy Written on a Crowded Street review in San Francisco Bay Guardian
- Jul 27, Jesus of Nazareth reviewed at Patheos
- Jun 30, Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm reviews In Our Control
- May 19, Bad Shoes reviewed at Juxtapoz
- May 11, Bad Shoes reviewed in Venus Zine
- Apr 16, Racing While Black reviewed at The Complex
- Apr 15, The Old Garden reviewed at the Collagist
- Mar 2, Racing While Black reviewed in Washington Post
- Feb 12, Harvard Law Record on Nader’s super-rich: “These 17 and some of their friends may indeed be the most realistic hope we have”
- Feb 11, Daybreak reviewed at Rusty Lime
- Feb 5, 10,000 Dresses reviewed at Rainbow Rumpus
- Jan 8, Three Annie Ernaux books reviewed at Belletrista
- Jan 4, The Things We Do To Make It Home at Feminist Review
- Dec 10, Edward Lucas reviews Towers of Stone for The Economist
- Dec 3, Once You Go Back named best LGBT book of the year
- Dec 1, The Others reviewed at Out In Print
