Reviews
May 24, 2012
The Hunt for Hyper-Condensed Sperm Whale Poop: Christopher Kemp’s Floating Gold 0
by Ben Shattuck
It’s hard not to fall in love with ambergris. Here is a solid lump of whale feces, weathered down to something that smells, depending on the piece and whom you’re talking to, like musk, violets, fresh-hewn wood, tobacco, dirt, Brazil nut, fern-copse, damp woods, new-mown hay, seaweed in the sun, the wood of old churches, or pretty much any other sweet-but-earthy scent.
May 24, 2012
Where the Heart Is: Toni Morrison’s Home 1
by Malcolm Forbes
But for all its strengths, Home still falls short. This is partly due to its length. The result is a busy cast bursting with potential, but characters who are so hamstrung in their tight confinement, so seldom on the page, that their tales are only half-told.
May 23, 2012
Across the Border: Richard Ford’s Canada 1
by Michael Bourne
One comes away from Canada feeling as though a less gifted author was trying to write a knock-off of a Richard Ford novel, and has made a hash of it.
May 23, 2012
Librarian, Distressed 2
by Kyle Winkler
Should libraries buy scads of the hottest bestseller? Or should they break themselves upon the rocks of serious scholarship? Cheeseburger in Paradise or Paradise Lost? Perhaps, somewhere in between?
May 22, 2012
Is ‘Fear of Music’ A Book? 2
by Jesse Jarnow
The 33 1/3 books are books in the deepest possible way, in a manner that seems to grow rarer by the year: the cheap, usable kind of book that might eventually enter circulation at used bookstores and garage sales, making themselves (and their subjects and writers) that much less likely to slip into oblivion.
May 17, 2012
Everyday Super Heroines: On Womanthology 2
by Andrew Rostan
Womanthology in many ways is a signpost for the ongoing evolution of comics over the past several decades. The comics world was for many years comprised of the superhero titles of DC and Marvel, two dominant, fraternal, meticulously run businesses. The key word in that sentence was “fraternal,” for the vast majority of creators working in the majors were men.
