Books

Book Review: “The Copywriter” — Of Proust, Pandas, and Poetic Inertia

February 18, 2026
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What stands out for this reader is the humor Daniel Poppick mines from the quotidian.

Poetry Review: “Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters” — Song of Pain and Praise

February 17, 2026
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Yusef Komunyakaa and Laren McClung’s goal — achieved through tag-team lyric utterance — is a noble spirituality.

Book Review: “Sixties Surreal” — A Jingle-Jangle of an Alternative Take

February 16, 2026
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While I heartily recommend “Sixties Surreal” as a provocative revisionist compendium or almanac, I know the volume will frustrate those who expect to find a conventional survey.

Book Review: “When Caesar Was King” — How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy

February 16, 2026
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The book argues, convincingly, that Sid Caesar’s genius wasn’t in what he did or said so much as in the anarchistic energy he encouraged his writers to unleash and harness.

Book Review: A Writer’s Life Reconsidered — Paule Marshall’s Artistry and Influence

February 14, 2026
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Mary Helen Washington’s biography of Paule Marshall provides a thorough consideration of the writer’s achievement and a convincing case that her fiction and her public speeches deserve continuing attention and respect.

Book Review: Spotlight on Rock’s Backbone: The “Backbeats” of 15 Drummers

February 13, 2026
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Backbeats is a detailed and informative story. Each profile functions as an entry point into a selective but substantial survey of roughly seventy-five years of rock history.

Book Review: “Ethel Barrymore” — A Reliable Itinerary, but the Bio Misses the Journey

February 13, 2026
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Kathleen Spaltro’s biography of Ethel Barrymore briskly traces her mythic career but brings to life neither the woman nor her theatre.

Poetry Review: “A Violence” from Within — Paula Bohince’s Switchblade Lyricism

February 11, 2026
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You can almost hear the volume whispering in your ear, “Be like lichen.” Traumatic grief, political tyranny, and environmental catastrophe are not irreversible.

Book Review: “The Hadacol Boogie” –James Lee Burke’s Bayou Ballad of Blood and Redemption

February 10, 2026
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The point of a novel like this: Life is messy, but glorious. Kind of like “The Hadacol Boogie”.

Book Review: When the Muse Misbehaves — The Absurd Charm of Yun Ko-eun’s “Art on Fire”

February 6, 2026
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Yun Ko-eun’s novel is a good, entertaining read that proceeds by a kind of literary Zeno’s Paradox: forever on the verge of some Big Revelation or vague Deeper Meaning without ever actually reaching them.

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