News - Book Reviews

News - Book Reviews

May 21, 2022

AN IMMENSE WORLD by Ed Yong earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer writes: “Pulitzer-winning journalist Yong (I CONTAIN MULTITUDES) reveals in this eye-opening survey animals’ world through their own perceptions…[Yong]’s a strong writer and makes a convincing case against seeing the world as only humans do: ‘By giving in to our preconceptions, we miss what might be right in front of us. And sometimes what we miss is breathtaking.’ This is science writing at its best.” Random House will publish the book on June 21, 2022.

May 21, 2022

Ahead of its summer release, Lucy Cooke’s BITCH has already gained impressive critical acclaim. A starred review from Kirkus describes the book as “[a] cheerful and knowledgeable popular science review of female animals” and “[a] top-notch book of natural science that busts myths as it entertains,” adding: “Readers will receive a superb education in the evolution and mechanics of animal sex as well as countless colorful anecdotes describing bizarre reproductive behavior. Readers will find the familiar account of female spiders eating males as they try to mate, but there is much more to discover in Cooke’s fascinating pages.” Meanwhile, a review from Publishers Weekly praises the book as “zippy” with “vivid detail,” adding: “The author has a charmingly irreverent style that, among other things, pokes holes in the sexist scientific research of old that used cherry-picked data to conclude females weren’t worth studying. This hits the right balance between informative and entertaining; popular science fans will want to check it out.” Basic Books will publish the book on June 14, 2022.

May 21, 2022

Sarah Manguso’s VERY COLD PEOPLE received a rave review from The Guardian. Reviewer Laura Elkin writes: “Well into a career that encompasses poetry, memoir and projects such as her 2017 collection of quotable fragments 300 ARGUMENTS, the American author Sarah Manguso has turned to the novel…[VERY COLD PEOPLE] is a testament to the marks left by the past from generation to generation, and the frigid world of Waitsfield offers Manguso the perfect metaphor for it: ‘The salted snow left white lines on the flagstones, and even if you poured hot water over them and scrubbed, as my mother did each spring, those ghosts of winter never quite disappeared.’” Hogarth published the novel on February 8, 2022.

May 21, 2022

Rebecca Stott’s debut novel DARK EARTH received a starred review from Kirkus. The reviewer writes: “The conflict at the climax of this novel is not a clash of arms but a battle between brute power and cunning, between selfish greed and communal strength. Stott fills holes in written history with magic, mythic resonance, and 21st-century wish fulfillment.” Random House will publish the novel on July 19, 2022.

May 21, 2022

Rio Cortez’s forthcoming debut poetry collection GOLDEN AX received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer praises: “Cortez maps untrodden historical and speculative terrain in poems of stunning breadth and intimacy in this exquisite debut…Unflinching and generous, this bold collection opens new vistas in contemporary Black poetry.” The collection also received a stunning blurb from AIN'T BURNED ALL THE BRIGHT author Jason Reynolds, which reads: “GOLDEN AX is a mirror maze where every poem elongates or widens the reader. Though Cortez leads us through a personal journey that embodies the distortion of the archived and the imagined, I couldn't help but feel at the end of it that I'd been in congress with some of my own lesser-recognized selves. I've never read anything like it. Truly a sublime experience.” Penguin Books will publish GOLDEN AX on August 30, 2022.

May 21, 2022

THE PINK HOTEL, Liska Jacobs’s forthcoming third novel, received a positive review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer praises the book as “amusing” with a “chaotic climax [that] is something to behold,” adding: “Readers…will be easily carried along by the rollicking madcap sensibility.” MCD will publish the book on July 19, 2022.

May 21, 2022

Nada Alic’s debut short story collection BAD THOUGHTS earned strong praise in a review from Publishers Weekly. They write: “In Alic’s candid and humorous debut collection, women explore their darkest thoughts and fears…As the characters wrestle with what’s missing from their lives, the author finds mordant hilarity. The more Alic leans into the weirdness, the more addictive this becomes.” Vintage will publish the book on July 12, 2022.

May 13, 2022

The Boston Globe published a rave review of Samantha Hunt’s lauded nonfiction debut, THE UNWRITTEN BOOK. Reviewer Priscilla Gilman writes: “Author of the brilliant short story collection THE DARK DARK (2017) and the wonderfully odd and moving novel MR. SPLITFOOT (2016), Samantha Hunt is one of our most interesting and bold writers…THE UNWRITTEN BOOK [is] a characteristically wild effort that defies genre distinctions, flits from the profound to the mundane with fierce intelligence and searching restlessness, and at its best, delves deep into the recesses of the human heart with courageous abandon… THE UNWRITTEN BOOK ponders and enacts this art of losing with an intoxicating blend of humor and pathos.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on April 5, 2022.

May 13, 2022

Jordan Castro’s debut novel THE NOVELIST, received glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Publishers Weekly praises the novel as a “meticulous accounting of a day in the life of a struggling Baltimore novelist,” adding that “[s]truggling creative types will undoubtedly see themselves in this confident and surprising chronicle.” Meanwhile, Booklist calls the book “a confident, unique take on autofiction, a form that lends itself well to Castro’s focus on the endless distractions of modern life, and it is hilarious and enthralling, to boot.” Soft Skull will publish THE NOVELIST on June 14, 2022.

May 13, 2022

Roxane Gay continues to laud Rio Cortez’s forthcoming debut poetry collection, GOLDEN AX. In a Goodreads review, Gay praised the collection as “outstanding,”adding: “The poetry in these pages is intelligent, lyrical, as invested in the past as the present and future with witty nods to pop culture.” The collection also received a glowing blurb from Ross Gay, which reads: “I love—I mean, I love this book—for its sensuous, chiseled language; ...for its weird and brainy sense of humor; for its palpable yearning and need; and for its entangled, complicated, unfixable, and unfixing blackness... I am so grateful for this book, and this voice, and this heart, in the world.” Penguin Books will publish GOLDEN AX on August 30, 2022.