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 this quarter:
hidden songs of the Shah
poem with a northern accent
praising strange books
resolutions for resistance
year's best booze books
some genre faves for 2017
a wayback review of Andalucia
Urbivore, a spec-fic story
loving Trader Joe's circular
Lovecraftian Netflix show
Slug Mag on slam

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Reviews and
Criticism
03.19.18: "Poetry is not so much the subject of Farrell’s book—more like its tricksterish main character." link>>
03.16.18: "Urrea’s new novel is a clamorous, joyful Mexican-American family saga." link>>
03.15.18: The Long Hangover: Putin’s new Russia and the ghosts of the past is a "tour de force of book-length reporting." link>>
03.14.18: One Good Mama Bone is a true American hybrid, blending aspects of Southern Gothic, fairytale, and folklore. link>>
03.13.18: It is William Empson's "counter-thinking which makes him so hilarious and vital." link>>
03.12.18: Paul Blumer muses on Olivia Laing's study of six (male) writers and their drinking. link>>
03.09.18: A look at Un-su Kim and other Korean authors reinventing the thriller. link>>
03.08.18: Sex as a font of discovery, and sex as a minefield, in two new sex memoirs. link>>
03.07.18: The Rending and the Nest sets its post-apocalypse after the vanishing of objects as well as people. link>>
03.06.18: Liz Bourke reviews Book One of the "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" series. link>>
03.05.18: Wendy Cope, author of Anecdotal Evidence, "is too popular on the internet." link>>
03.02.18: Chukwuebuka Ibeh sees social commentary in A Wall Is Just A Wall. link>>
03.01.18: Steven Pinker thinks the world is perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket. link>>
02.28.18: Shalom Auslander's personal response to a new history of Hasidism. link>>
02.27.18: "Journalism tries to get the little stuff right but often gets the big stuff wrong. Enter Michael Wolff." link>>
02.26.18: Luke Burrage grapples with Schild's Ladder for his Sci-Fi Book Review Podcast. link>>
01.16.18: Jessica Sequeira has some thoughts on a first novel by Chilean writer Fe Orellana. link>>
01.15.18: Paul Rowe on power in obscurity, in Léann Herlihy's Self-Sacrifice as Success. link>>
01.12.18: Rayyan Al-Shawaf sees where the creepy stuff begins to seep out in Leila Slimani's The Perfect Nanny. link>>
01.10.18: "Stephen Spender all too often comes across as a slightly ludicrous figure." link>>
01.09.18: Jon Maniscalco reads Lords of St. Thomas, the debut novel of Jackson Ellis. link>>
01.08.18: Gary Saul Morson on the literary works, the cathedrals, of Solzhenitsyn. link>>
01.05.18: A brief review of Kaveh Akbar’s debut full-length collection, "an incisive look into addiction and sobriety." link>>
01.02.18: The essays in The Death of Public Knowledge point up the ways neoliberalism erodes the resources which undergird the general intellect. link>>
01.01.18: The fascinating tale of the Great Northern Expedition, which laid the Russian path east through Siberia. link>>
12.29.17: In DRB this month, Nessa O’Mahony reviews new collections by Clairr O’Connor and Máiríde Woods. link>>
12.28.17: The life and work artist Bas Jan Ader shadow Niña Weijers’s brilliant debut novel, The Consequences. link>>
12.27.17: Death: A Graveside Companion delivers morbid tidbits and illuminating essays by death industry experts. link>>
12.26.17: Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach demands patience of the reader. link>>
12.25.17: "… to frame Cuban independence as a process that evolved in Cuba and in relation to the United States alone is to constrain the past." link>>
12.22.17: Thinking ahead to Mortal Engines, we look back to Inverted World. link>>
Excerpts, Features
and Interviews
03.19.18: From James Stotts—ever the innovator—a sonnet in half steps. link>>
03.16.18: "It takes a real nerd to notice flawed ancient Greek in the Disney tie-in reissue of a decades-old children’s book." link>>
03.15.18: On the Pusteblume webpage, a translation of "Please Do Not Disturb, I Am Currently Experiencing a Sleep Revolution" by Nagel. link>>
03.14.18: Frederick Grant's poem notes the poised balance between a dog's gravity and the dog-walker's uplift. link>>
03.13.18: Joyce's Ulysses first appeared in print a hundred years ago; you should read it. link>>
03.12.18: Melanie Odelle interviews NBCC Poetry Award finalist Layli Long Soldier. link>>
03.09.18: Paul Lewis' "The Battle Hymn of the Donald" looks at Trump through the eyes of classic Bostonian authors. link>>
03.08.18: A celebratory round-up of female authors who blazed trails in the world of sci-fi. link>>
03.07.18: A visit to the family services office, in this except from Brad Parks' new thriller Closer Than You Know. link>>
03.06.18: “You can’t reason with people who want to burn it all down;” Colson Lin sifts through melancholy, integration, and America at the present. link>>
03.05.18: Rui Zhang looks at the transformations and continuities in Chinese translations of The Arabian Nights. link>>
03.02.18: Gary K. Wolfe has a science ficion year-in-review essay online at Locus magazine. link>>
03.01.18: Poet physician Rafael Campo on finding humanity in medicine and science. link>>
02.28.18: Chukwuebuka Ibeh discusses nostalgia, stories and solidarity with Nigerian writer Otosirieze Obi-Young. link>>
02.23.18: Laura Wilkinson of Creative Futures wants to connect agents and editors with under-represented authors. link>>
02.15.18: Anto Rondón considers the dual nature of knowledge, in a novel, in a film, and in a nation undergoing crisis. link>>
01.16.18: At the PSA website, Emily Skillings explicates her own poem "Matron of No." link>>
01.15.18: At Read African Books, an interview with Shiraz Durrani and Kimani Waweru about radical publisher Vita Books. link>>
01.12.18: Science-fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany talks with Slate about the work habits of his queer career. link>>
01.11.18: Why Dan Kieran of Unbound is giving up reading books by white men. link>>
01.10.18: An interview, touching on good carpenters and God-culture, with the publicity shy Robert Bringhurst. link>>
01.09.18: "Loss", a microfiction by Danijela Trajković, is now online at Modern Literature. link>>
01.08.18: In this story by Shilpi Suneja, a Hindu girl encounters Christianity in her dorms. link>>
01.05.18: AQR's film version of "Shaawatke'é's Birth", in Tlingit and English, is now online. link>>
01.04.18: Abhay Kumar makes the case for why India needs a national poetry library. link>>
01.03.18: "Sometimes on a whim, I google writers who committed suicide;" a poem by Abhijit Khandkar. link>>
01.02.18: Jezebel talks with the author of a new bio of Lucy Parsons, a radical and "walking contradiction of terms." link>>
01.01.18: "Serenity of the Moon", a new short story by Iraqi writer Jalal Hasan. link>>
12.29.17: A feature text by Irish performance artist Léann Herlihy, "The sacrificed calf feeds from the swollen udder." link>>
12.28.17: "Not baiting fish but baiting time"; an angling sonnet by Zoë Sather. link>>
12.27.17: Susan McDonald explains why she's been reading Auden for 30 years. link>>
12.26.17: "Its strength comes from the recognition of human frailty"; an interview with poet Mahmoud Darwish. link>>
12.25.17: Reviewing two collections from Commune Editions, a press which views itself as "a raised fist of new activist poetry." link>>
12.22.17: Joanna C. Valente recommends six nonbinary or transgender creators you should know about. link>>
New Books and
Literary News
03.19.18: Study shows that papers published in high-cost journals don't differ substantially from free pre-prints. link>>
03.16.18: Employees of Porter Square Books will gradually take over ownership, in new succession plan. link>>
03.15.18: A trailer for the WGBH series Poetry in America, to broadcast on public television from March 28 through May 2. link>>
03.14.18: PubTech Connect panelists describe the challenges of publishing across so many platforms, connecting to such fragmented audiences. link>>
03.13.18: Atlas Obscura features Brattle Book Shop, in the trade since 1825. link>>
03.12.18: Stephanie Burt remembers, and eulogizes, Lucie Brock-Broido. link>>
03.09.18: Deadly Woman Blues is an example of the "authorial burdens and responsibilities inherent in publishing other people’s stories." link>>
03.08.18: "The state of writing in Algeria is excellent." link>>
03.07.18: "The works of men pass away"; on watching the dance play Memorial. link>>
03.06.18: Slate Book Review and the Center for Cartoon Studies release the 2018 Cartoonist Studio Prize Shortlists. link>>
03.05.18: Li Jiawen opened a bookstore in Hangzhou that only sells two titles at a time. link>>
03.02.18: Barnes & Noble to open a set of smaller prototype stores in new fiscal year. link>>
01.16.18: Boston bids farewell to poet Walter Howard, the open miker's open miker. link>>
01.15.18: The publisher of the Boston Herald walks away with millions, and no apologies. link>>
01.12.18: A new antho redresses the lack of women in other compilations of Irish poets. link>>
01.11.18: Lisa Robertson has won the inaugural $40,000 C.S. Wright Award for Poetry. link>>
01.10.18: 2018 marks a quarter-century of literary production from above/ground press. link>>
01.09.18: A new Korean exhibit of art and poetry responds to the 6,000-year-old Bangudae petroglyphs. link>>
01.08.18: Thinking of Milo, Barbara Fister weighs in on the question of the danger of books. link>>
01.05.18: Fred Bass, the longtime overseer of 18 miles of books, passes away, leaves his daughter to carry on legacy. link>>
01.04.18: A trove in Lithuania has been uncovered, containing Yiddish and Jewish literature hidden from the Nazis. link>>
01.03.18: As goes Book World (RIP), so goes brick-and-mortar book retail nationwide. link>>
01.02.18: The Dipper rounds up news and events from New England's literary north. link>>
01.01.18: Gallimard leaps at the chance to reprint works of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, beloved French author and anti-Semite. link>>
12.29.17: The growing market online in China for literature is feeding a boom of screen adaptations. link>>
12.28.17: "Old timber to new fires"; Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue on their critical edition of T. S. Eliot’s poetry. link>>
12.27.17: How Fatima Al Qadiri uses the Internet to create her protest poetry. link>>
12.26.17: Young writers from India & Pakistan host joint events in New Delhi & Karachi. link>>
12.25.17: Sarah Ruhl reflects on Trump's decision not to attend the Kennedy Center awards. link>>
12.22.17: Coming in February from Bordighera Press, The Arab's Ox: Stories of Morocco. link>>

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