Booknotes from Our Staff

The Last Brother by Natacha Appanah, trans. by Geoffrey Strachan (Graywolf) This is one of the most beautiful, contained portrayals of devastating loss and profound longing that this reader has ever encountered. An older man gives voice and remembrance to his younger self, bringing to vivid life a childhood marked by brutality, separation, and death, [...]

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Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover (or Title)

I’m sure most people have heard the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” (often spoken in a semi-strict schoolmarm voice, followed by a wagging finger). Well, last autumn I had a first-hand experience with this idiom. Our store’s Algonquin publisher rep handed me a book titled Blind Your Ponies and urged me to [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon) On a seemingly normal day, a mysterious worldwide phenomenon, referred to as “The Illumination,” occurs. Suddenly, every person’s suffering is made visible. Pain is manifested as radiant light pouring from the wounds of the injured, glowing from an arthritic knee, sparking the air around the heartbroken. In a series [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Knopf) Although they don tribal gear, the Bigtrees have no Native American ancestry, but they do have Swamplandia!, both their home and home to the popular gator-themed park of the same name. But the empire starts to unravel when their matriarch dies. Chief Bigtree maintains a false optimism, Kiwi, the eldest [...]

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Small Press Month

March is, apparently, a month known for many things—National Noodle Month, National Peanut Month, Black Hole Awareness Month, and National Month of Social Work, for starters. And while this Saturday will mark the third evening I’ve spent dining with my social worker uncle at the Spaghetti Factory, discussing what might happen if a peanut fell [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

Life on Sandpaper by Yoram Kaniuk, trans. by Anthony Berris (Dalkey Archive) Part of the Hebrew Literature Series, Kaniuk’s “fictional autobiography” takes place in the prosperous creativity of 1950s New York. Kaniuk arrives in America, perhaps a bit shell-shocked after being wounded in Israel’s 1948 war, and swan dives into a dizzying collision of worlds: [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

I’m Not by Pam Smallcomb, illus. by Robert Weinstock (Schwartz & Wade) If you’re looking for a charming and amusing children’s book about friendship, I’m Not is sure to be a lovely selection. Here we discover two young friends who are as different as can be, yet they celebrate and love their differences. In spite [...]

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Ruling Through the Rye

In 2009, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye was published in the United Kingdom to decidedly lackluster fanfare. For all the cult popularity of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, it is a wonder that the publication of a sequel met with such a feeble reception. True, many fans of the original were outraged [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir by Chil Rajchman, trans. by Solon Beinfeld  (Pegasus) Treblinka, a Nazi death camp in eastern Poland where nearly eight hundred thousand Jews were killed, is a name that remains more obscure than other Nazi camps because there were so few survivors. The only work at the camp involved [...]

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Booknotes from Our Staff

The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda by Peter L. Bergen (Free Press) CNN National Security Analyst Peter L. Bergen’s book is essential reading for those who want a thorough analysis of the U.S. involvement in the “war on terror.” He does a great job of giving the reader a revealing portrait [...]

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