New England Review of Books

boston, mass. // launched 2016 // the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain

amplifying criticism, commentary and literary news // updates mon-fri
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Items of note:
Bauhaus by Adobe
Sanderson's game list
an Easter bunny
Stevenson rues birthdays
singular they is authorized
odd fonts and layouts
the Gamahucher bookshelf
"Joyce Carol Oates is a cop"
how writers talk about writing
Hamlet via social media
first meeting of the UPS
masterclass with Brian Cox
/r/suggestmeabook
automatic news plagiarism
old books on Instagram
Jeffrey Epstein Jesus Tanka
3-D sculptures from books
words with apt forms
On Liberty, illustrated
Hay Festival book list
he hates the cover
Parrotheads retaliate
book art in Istanbul
donate books to a prison
The Takedown by Aya de Leon
feedback on a reading

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The Complete Review
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Letras Libres
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Reviews and
Criticism
04.23.20: Reseacher Henry Berry reviews Defining a Discipline, a festschrift in honor of archivist Richard J. Cox. link>>
04.20.20: Through memoir, pop analysis and scholarship, Rachel Vorona Cote examines “How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today.” link>>
04.17.20: Despite the claim on the cover, Gravity and Grace was not written by Simone Weil. link>>
04.16.20: That Greta proves to be normal teen won't stop us from seeing her as a myth, a savior, a stylish symbol. link>>
04.15.20: The "meditative, yet impassioned sensibility" of The Stars in Our Pockets offers clarity in a time of crisis. link>>
04.14.20: Start-up veteran Wendy Liu argues for the need to Abolish Silicon Valley. link>>
04.13.20: "Just when we thought Milo Weaver was out, Steinhauer has pulled him back in." link>>
04.10.20: "An affecting reflection from the writer who made herself heard above the cacophony of men explaining things." link>>
04.09.20: David Blake Knox works over a new defense of Protestant culture in Northern Ireland. link>>
04.08.20: Fifteen years after Saving the World, Julia Alvarez delivers her second novel "with grace and assurance." link>>
04.07.20: Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai clears "the fog of war" in The Mountains Sing, a "love letter . . . to the Vietnamese people." link>>
04.06.20: Contemplating South Africa's traumas through the idea of lost language. link>>
04.03.20: Can a fictional character make our current commander-in-chief look genteel? link>>
04.02.20: Hope Jahren's "quirky clarity" prioritizes accessibility in The Story of More. link>>
04.01.20: The Art of Classic Planning suggests 'classic' approaches can make our cities attractive and livable again. link>>
03.31.20: A look back at Knave of Dreams, a Ruritanian adventure published in 1975. link>>
03.30.20: Woody Allen's memoir, published despite cancellation, is "the most damning indictment yet" against him. link>>
11.15.19: Martha Sprackland writes about Yoko Ogawa's dreamlike, allegorical novel The Memory Police. link>>
11.14.19: "Literary governesses never have it easy"; Robert Allen Papinchak reviews Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson. link>>
11.13.19: In Underland, Rob Macfarlane considers the "imprint we are leaving to our ancestors in a rapidly changing world." link>>
11.12.19: A new natural history of Moby-Dick is "a fascinating, timely exploration of Melville's (and our) watery world." link>>
11.08.19: Heidi White reviews Harold Bloom's "swan song", Possessed by Memory. link>>
11.07.19: Hiroko Oyamada’s new novel draws upon her alienating experiences working as an office temp in a factory. link>>
11.06.19: In Louisa Treger's The Dragon Lady, "race, class, and hapless good intentions collide in 1950s Rhodesia." link>>
11.05.19: Corey Robin wants us to see through Justice Thomas’s eyes, "no matter how troubling this perspective may be." link>>
11.04.19: Will Self's new memoir is "one of the most whiny, petty, morally destitute books" Johanna Thomas-Corr's ever read. link>>
11.01.19: Queen of Coin and Whispers is "part coming of age, part romance, part mannered fantasy of politics." link>>
10.31.19: "Many readers will wonder whether Ransom is a poet worth troubling over, these decades after his death..." link>>
10.30.19: "The reader is both relieved and delighted that A Pure Heart redeems itself." link>>
10.29.19: Gene Meyer reviews the story of socialite Gertrude Sanford Legendre, a six-month “guest” of the Third Reich. link>>
10.28.19: In Mahir Guven's debut novel a young Frenchman's return from war-torn Syria derails his older brother's life. link>>
10.25.19: For many scholars, “Homer was frogs and mice, not Achilles and Odysseus.” link>>
10.24.19: Eighty years after The Black Jacobins, "a brilliant companion to James’s study has finally been published." link>>
10.23.19: Running parallel to The Iliad, Michael Hughes' Country tells of love, friendship, and war during Ireland’s Troubles. link>>
10.22.19: Nina Renata Aron on Veronica Raimo’s new novel, and fiction in the MeToo era. link>>
02.15.19: Is Andrés Neuman's Fractura "one of the great literary events of 2018?" link>>
02.14.19: The titular wells in The Hundred Wells of Salaga were "were built to wash slaves after long journeys." link>>
02.13.19: Characters in Sabahattin Ali's Madonna in a Fur Coat yearn for a life beyond the judgments of society. link>>
02.12.19: Watershed Redemption blends family history with the stories of five watersheds that family has lived upon. link>>
02.11.19: "When in the moment of your own sadness, it can feel as if the hammer is the only tool for poetry." link>>
02.08.19: "Girondo’s poems often engage the modern urban environment as a site of imitation, simulation, or spectacle." link>>
02.07.19: Kevin Power on Jonathan Franzen’s nonfiction volumes: "Like the curate’s egg, they are good in parts." link>>
02.06.19: An anthology from The Whole Kahani showcases a collective of female writers of British-Asian origin. link>>
02.05.19: A review by Prudence Flowers of Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition‏. link>>
02.04.19: William Van Beckum's haunting Ghost Lands montage disappears bit by bit in real time as guests make purchases. link>>
02.01.19: "There’s more to Stoker’s penultimate novel, The Lady of the Shroud, than meets the eye." link>>
01.31.19: "Becoming is a contemporary woman’s adventure told by an intelligent, funny narrator." link>>
01.30.19: David Treuer's The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee challenges that narrative that Native America is everywhere and in all ways in decline." link>>
01.29.19: In Locus, Gary K. Wolfe reviews the anthology The Book of Magic, edited by the late Gardner Dozois (RIP). link>>
01.28.19: George Kalogeris braids his family’s journey to the US with centuries of Greek history. link>>
01.25.19: "Reproduction manages to be witty, playful, and disarmingly offbeat, as it hums with serious themes." link>>
01.24.19: Not All Dead White Men traces continuities between the misogyny of classical antiquity and our own Red Pill present. link>>

01.23.19: 'We can do better than a feminism that is marriage-naturalizing, anti-communist... yet tacitly opposed to sluts.' link>>

Excerpts, Features
and Interviews
11.06.20: Nina Cason poetically argues a defense of Milton's much-maligned Dalila. link>>
04.17.20: From Georgia Park, a new story about a young woman inside an iron lung, tended by an overbearing mother. link>>
04.16.20: Margaret Jull Costa translates the "Dickinsonian wit and wordplay" of Ana Luísa Amaral's "The Battle." link>>
04.15.20: Mark Doty interrogates sexuality and 'unspeakability' in Leaves of Grass. link>>
04.10.20: "It was only one seed"; a climate-conscious short story from Christopher Rowe. link>>
03.31.20: Mallarmé's genre-defying, self-referential life-work, The Book, is finally available in English translation. link>>
03.30.20: Stephanie Gorton reflects on an era when magazine entrepeneurs built empires. link>>
11.15.19: At Empty Mirror, a lush essay exploring William Blake’s influence on Ginsberg. link>>
11.14.19: Jonathan Han reviews some of the thinking on the subject of hyphenation and dual identity in the US. link>>
11.13.19: Askold Melnyczuk on reading and meeting Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk. link>>
11.12.19: In her first feature for The Montreal Review of Books, Marcela Huerta cracks open Resisting Canada. link>>
11.11.19: Jennifer Croft talks about writing and translation with Mairead Small Staid. link>>
11.08.19: Mmatshilo Motsei recalls the prolific South African author Es’kia Mphahlele in this his centenary year. link>>
11.06.19: NOVA focuses on the detectives and technology unraveling the mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. link>>
11.05.19: The Millions and Valerie Pierce discuss the importance of local bookstores. link>>
11.04.19: At Slate, a new story from Cory Doctorow imagines the menace of ubiquitous surveillance, social algorithms, et al. link>>
11.01.19: At BoingBoing, a short fiction by German climate activist Sina Kamala Kaufmann. link>>
10.31.19: Horror fiction is quite popular in Cairo! For Halloween, ArabLit presents Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi's "Hour of the Wolf." link>>
10.30.19: Cynthia Cruz talks to Paul Rowe about Disquieting: Essays on Silence, and her recent work and interests. link>>
10.29.19: Co-editor Joey Eschrich talks about Future Tense Fiction with authors Madeline Ashby and Charlie Jane Anders. link>>
10.28.19: "the continuous impulse to decompose back into the soul"; a poem by Art & Letters co-editor Raquel Balboni. link>>
10.25.19: Excerpts from a new Essential Guide to Understanding Information Disorder are now available at First Draft. link>>
10.24.19: A profile of Bei Dao, touching on "misty poetics" and the paradox of Hong Kong. link>>
10.23.19: Gabi Reigh recommends ten coming-of-age novels from around the world. link>>
10.22.19: Jacob Howland on Borges' mirror, the depredations of infinity, and the roots of our modern muddle. link>>
02.11.19: An alum of one of the Northeast's elite MFA programs reports on life from the white working class. link>>
02.08.19: Rosalind Jana spotlights a few of the new boundary-breaking female poets. link>>
02.07.19: Ruby Nangia interviews Medha Singh, an indefatigable poet/editor in New Delhi. link>>
02.06.19: Robert F. Delaney talks about the gay scene in Beijing ca. 2007, transitioning from news-writing to fiction, and more. link>>
02.05.19: Poet Martyn Crucefix blogs about Ted Hughes and ancient Indian poems. link>>
02.04.19: Natasha Wimmer talks Bolaño with NPR, and shares selections from her translation of The Spirit of Science Fiction. link>>
02.01.19: Book collector Kurt Zimmerman recounts the experience of moving thousands of books to a new home. link>>
01.31.19: Snow, and slush, and complicity, in three short poems by Chad Norman. link>>
01.30.19: Nnedi Okorafor talks with CBC Radio about the empowering impact of seeing black people in stories which envision possible futures. link>>
01.29.19: Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, answers questions from famous fans and fellow writers. link>>
01.28.19: Novelist Cai Emmons on what fiction can teach about climate change. link>>
01.25.19: Laura Miller considers the comedy and cultural context of Vanessa Place's new anthology of rape jokes. link>>
01.24.19: Terry Gamble never expected to write a 19th-century novel, but then she set her latest in antebellum Cincinnati. link>>
01.23.19: 'My earliest memory of Peru is a 1980 newspaper photo of dead dogs hanging from lamp posts in downtown Lima.' link>>
12.20.18: Samuel Wronoski bends history and natural history to his purposes in three poems. link>>
New Books and
Literary News
04.16.20: Austin Kleon shows you how to make a zine from one sheet of paper. link>>
04.15.20: On this death-day of H.P. Lovecraft, we return, pilgrim-like, to the NecronomiCon. link>>
11.15.19: The oldest surviving book known to have been owned by English speakers is a manuscript made in Africa. link>>
11.14.19: Berfrois hits a milestone! 100 newsletter issues, and 10 years of publication. link>>
11.13.19: Lin-Manuel Miranda et al. intend to relocate, reopen NYC's Drama Book Shop. link>>
11.12.19: Massachusetts novelist David R. Gillham imagines a post-war life for Anne Frank. link>>
11.11.19: The Levitt Indigenous Poetry Prize will celebrate Indigenous talent. link>>
11.08.19: Tamir Hassan argues for an open, universal standard for document-editing. link>>
11.07.19: Mike Glyer rounds-up the complaints about the business dealings of ChiZine. link>>
11.06.19: Ani King announces that their January 2020 issue will be the last for Syntax & Salt. link>>
11.05.19: Nine days left to crowd-fund Vital, a short fiction antho that explores "what's coming next in medicine and health." link>>
11.04.19: A satirical poetry troupe in Myanmar has been sentenced to prison. link>>
11.01.19: Conflict continues between Macmillan and public libraries over the proposed ebook lending embargo. link>>
10.31.19: Rest in peace, Jordanian writer, journalist, and activist Amjad Nasser, 1955-2019. link>>
10.30.19: The Bibliothèque nationale de France is hosting an exhibition dedicated to Tolkien, running to February 2020. link>>
10.29.19: Robert Reid-Pharr will lecture in New Haven today on James Baldwin and "the practice of celebrity." link>>
10.28.19: It's been a century since Eliot published "Tradition and the Individual Talent." link>>
10.25.19: For two decades, Stuart Kells has been hunting down the remnants of Shakespeare's personal library. link>>
10.24.19: Preservationists rally to save Reading Gaol where Oscar Wilde was persecuted. link>>
10.23.19: Police report that Kurdish poet Mohammed Omar Osman has died by suicide. link>>
10.22.19: The naked page? Vermont writers strip down to raise money for library. link>>
02.11.19: Doctorow endorses Jeff Lemire's new "spooky af" horror comic, Gideon Falls. link>>
02.08.19: ASU library acquires Holocaust poetry, artist's miniature book collection. link>>
02.07.19: A letter calling for relief from legal persecution of The Athens Review of Books. link>>
02.06.19: Pakistani poet and columnist Arfan Shahood is combining travel writing with history and Urdu folklore. link>>
02.05.19: A challenge to classics journals to accept 50% of submissions authors from marginalized groups. link>>
02.04.19: A New Zealand classicist uncovers ancient Greek poetry in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. link>>
02.01.19: 28 Days of Literary Blackness, a reading log by Panama Jackson of VSB. link>>
01.31.19: Behrouz Boochani won two prizes for a book composed via texts sent from an Australian-run detention center. link>>
01.30.19: Otto Penzler is teaming with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, an imprint for suspense aimed at female readers. link>>
01.29.19: Announcing a free book of cli-fi, introduced by Kim Stanley Robinson. link>>
01.28.19: The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver breaks up with Audible. link>>
01.25.19: NYU has made available an archive of Freedom, Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham's radical Harlem newspaper. link>>
01.24.19: Wattpad will use machine learning to help select stories for publication in its new book imprint. link>>
01.23.19: The Times Record chats with Gary Lawless, owner of Gulf of Maine Books. link>>

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