Book Review
Half Wild
Dave Dempsey spent more than three decades working in a range of environmental-policy roles in Michigan, and those experiences inform his new essay collection "Half Wild". The stories in the book all discuss the intersection of human...
Book Review
Compass
In Murray Lee’s engrossing novel Compass, a travel writer with an encyclopedic knowledge of previous polar expeditions sets out on his own trip to the Arctic. Guy narrates, mixing dark comedy into his tale with high dramatic stakes....
Book Review
A Screenwriter's Companion
Joseph Dougherty, whose script credits include his Emmy-winning work on the sitcom thirtysomething, as well as Pretty Little Liars, shares his personal writing philosophies and best practices in A Screenwriter’s Companion. The book...
Book Review
The 12-Hour Art Expert
Art historian Noah Charney describes himself as “a proponent of making art feel accessible to anyone who is willing to meet it halfway,” and "The 12-Hour Art Expert" accomplishes that mission via an anecdotal, conversational approach...
Book Review
Pictures of the Shark
An often sad and always compelling novel in short stories, Thomas H. McNeely’s "Pictures of the Shark" follows Buddy, tracking the echoes of his parents’ broken marriage as they reverberate through his coming-of-age. In “Snow,...
Book Review
Making a Chaputs
The chaputs style of dugout canoe has great cultural importance to Canada’s Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations. Joe Martin, a master of the craft with more than sixty such canoes to his name, teams up with museum curator Alan Hoover to...
Book Review
Why Patti Smith Matters
Veteran music journalist Caryn Rose became an instant Patti Smith fan at the age of twelve, when she saw Smith appear on Saturday Night Live. Her book "Why Patti Smith Matters" brings that fan enthusiasm to bear, resulting in an...
Book Review
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
Millions of years of evolution led to remarkable animal adaptations—adaptations that, as UK broadcaster and wildlife documentarian Patrick Aryee demonstrates in his enjoyable, informative book, scientists draw inspiration from,...