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Entries Tagged as 'Book Reviews'

Review of Hank Williams by Peter Berghoef

July 2nd, 2010 No Comments

What Greying Ghost Press sent me, in the order I removed it (as best I can remember) from a manilla envelope, a few days after I ordered Peter Berghoef’s[1] enveloped pamphlet Hank Williams, containing the poem “Hank Williams”[2]: 1. Page from LIFE magazine’s 22 April 1940 article about NYC’s then-District Attorney and Republican presidential hopeful, [...]

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Review: Under the Small Lights

June 10th, 2010 No Comments

Emerson Alumnus John Cotter has recently released his first book, a novel entitled Under the Small Lights. Last week I had the pleasure of not only speaking with John Cotter, but hearing him read, and let me just say right now – John Cotter is an incredible reader. If you ever get a chance to [...]

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Redivider announces the winners of its AWP Quickie Contest

May 3rd, 2010 No Comments

If you came to Redivider‘s double-table (the result of a heavily-contested annex that turned bloody Friday morning during an uneasy predawn), whoever was working likely suggested that you fill one side of a rather large postcard, which we provided, with your poetry or prose.  Entries in the Quickie Contest–pause for nervous laughter, “But no, seriously”–were [...]

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Redivider 7.1 reviewed by New Pages

April 1st, 2010 1 Comment

New Pages has this to say about Issue 7.1 of Redivider, Emerson’s student-run journal: I had not seen the journal before the current issue and, since this is the seventh volume, I realize I’ve missed out on six years of provocative writing and terrific and unusual artworks. Read the full review (NP has also reviewed Ploughshares [...]

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City of Thieves by David Benioff

December 8th, 2009 No Comments

Leningrad was not a funny place to be during the German’s siege on the city in World War II. When you are starving, hunting rats for dinner, and nibbling small rations of rock-hard “bread,” there is little room for joking around. Somehow though, and without forcing it, author David Benioff mixes humor and brutal reality [...]

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What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

November 30th, 2009 1 Comment

Noted Emerson alumna, Laura van den Berg released in October her first collection of short stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. Beautiful and sad, her stories span the globe, from Madagascar to Chicago to Inverness, in search of wonder, love, and acceptance. Her voice is clean, the prose [...]

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Boston Book Fest: R. Sikoryak

October 25th, 2009 No Comments

I’ve decided I have a new cartoonist crush: R. Sikoryak. His latest book is Masterpiece Comics, which is, in the parlance of the modern DJ, a mashup of classic comics and even classic-ier literature. What happens when Blondie eats the Fruit of Knowledge? When Bazooka Joe enters Dante’s Inferno? When Charlie Brown awakes to find [...]

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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

September 22nd, 2009 No Comments

Many a day around seven pm I look in my empty kitchen cabinets and wish pasta al a carbonara would start raining from the skies. No hassle of cooking, no tipping the delivery guy–just spaghetti from heaven. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this gravy boat. It sounds like a tall tale, I [...]

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When You First Find Yourself in a Book

September 21st, 2009 1 Comment

This book, pages yellowed, dog-eared, now laying on my desk, was my first Great Read—the original favorite book.

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The New Valley by Josh Weil

August 6th, 2009 No Comments

That a collection of three novellas was published at all, let alone by a new author who then received high praise and numerous glowing reviews, is an event worth writing about. Josh Weil’s The New Valley is an impressive anomaly. But how does one write about novellas? Yeah, yeah: like a novel only shorter. I [...]

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