Acclaimed director Jane Campion adapted Thomas Savage’s forgotten classic western The Power of the Dog for film to great success. But what changes did she make, and which version is better? … More The Power of the Dog: Book vs. Movie
Dario Diofebi’s debut novel about Las Vegas and the people who get caught up in it thinks of Sin City as a microcosm for America. Is it? … More Paradise, Nevada and Las Vegas as America
In Maggie O’Farrell’s sterling Hamnet, she seeks to fill in the blanks of history to tell a deeply human story. … More Life and Death in the Margins: Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
A review/rant about Bianca Marais’ novel If You Want to Make God Laugh, an unintentionally offensive story about three women in post-apartheid South Africa. … More Here Comes a Book Rant
I’ve been sitting on this review for a while now because I keep turning it over and over in my head, and to be brutally honest, I’m trying to decide how much I actually like this book. Published in 1978, Dancer From the Dance is a perfect encapsulation of the gay subculture that thrived in … More My Deep Dive into Dancer from the Dance
In Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, a family in crisis confronts the new realities of a changing world. … More Surviving in Changing Times: Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver
It’s the end of the world in Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles, but you wouldn’t know it from what her characters are worried about. … More Young Love at the End of the World: The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker
A review of a nonfiction account of one woman’s quest to save children orphaned by or suffering from AIDS in Ethiopia. … More Motherhood, Charity, and Africa’s AIDS Orphans: There is No Me Without You, by Melissa Fay Greene
A humane, sharply observed set of interlocked stories about a home care worker taking care of AIDS patients in the 1990s. … More A Handbook for Helping the Dying: The Gifts of the Body, by Rebecca Brown
A review of Samanta Schweblin’s newly translated surreal short story collection, Mouthful of Birds. … More Get Creeped out with Mouthful of Birds, by Samanta Schweblin
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