Current Issue: Artvoice v7n47, week of Thursday November 20 » back issues

Artvoice Book Reviews

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Free Ride: John McCain and the Media by David Brock and Paul Waldman (review by Matthew Miranda, Artvoice v7n30)

In Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, David Brock and Paul Waldman portray the national press as so smitten with the McCain mythos—the straight-talking, post-partisan, incorruptible outsider—that they gloss over or ignore completely the darker realities of the man. The book does not critique McCain’s politics, but rather looks at how and why the media grants him and him alone this exemption.

Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me edited by Ben Karlin (review by Joe Libutti, Artvoice v7n25)

Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me, a recent compendium of advice gleaned from failed relationships, might surprise you with it’s all-star cast of contributors.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy (review by Joe Libutti, Artvoice v7n22)

In his new book, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, humorist Dan Kennedy documents his time spent in an unlikely marketing position at Atlantic Records.

U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security by J. Peter Scoblic (review by Bruce Fisher, Artvoice v7n22)

In the 1976 election, the Republican primary pitted an incumbent if accidental president against the California conservative Ronald Reagan.

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism By Kevin Phillips (review by Bruce Fisher, Artvoice v7n20)

After reading the new book by Kevin Phillips, a painful realization dawns: Not one of the people running for president is addressing how interconnected and serious America’s economic, ecological, and security problems are.

Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies By Ginger Strand (review by Geoff Kelly, Artvoice v7n19)

Like the river for which it’s named, Ginger Strand’s Inventing Niagara begins gradually, channeling mighty historical forces before branching off, gathering speed and turbulence before plunging in a breathtaking spectacle—only to rise again, light, airy, and refreshing as mist.

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey By Candace Millard (review by Gerry Rising, Artvoice v7n17)

When he lost the presidential election of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt retained what John Burroughs described as his “unbounded energy and vitality.”

Farewell my Subrau: An Epic Adventure in Local Living By Doug Fine (review by Gerry Rising, Artvoice v7n16)

So you want to “go green.” Here is a guy who has done just that.

Bear Stories By J'Lyn Chapman (review by Forrest Roth, Artvoice v7n15)

It is fitting that J’Lyn Chapman’s Bear Stories, a sequence of thirty short prose poems, starts where most wilderness tales can’t help but tread—a small, nondescript cabin in the middle of human abandon.

Breaking it Down By Rusty Barnes (review by Forrest Roth, Artvoice v7n14)

As someone with plenty of eclectic fiction on his bookshelves, I admit there’s much to be said for authors who attempt true characters from their own sense of the commonplace—to most of us, perhaps, lives spent in exhausted locales we would pass without any generous contemplation—yet manage to subvert those stereotypes tempted, even expected.

My First Year in Purgatory By M. Clabeaux (review by Peter Koch, Artvoice v7n12)

I feel like I’m entering prison,” local author M. Clabeaux writes of arriving at his first teaching job, “unsure if I’m warden or inmate.”

There Are No Doors on a Cocoon By Lou Rera (review by Forrest Roth, Artvoice v7n10)

True to his cutting subtitle, Buffalo State professor Lou Rera’s collection of flash fiction features a brood of abbreviated people we would be better off not becoming although, in all likelihood, they may surround us wherever we go anyway.

Bang Crunch By Neil Smith (review by Matthew Miranda, Artvoice v7n9)

Dismantle your genome and you’ll find you have the same building blocks as that rat…What differs…is the pieces chosen and the order they’re stacked in.”

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon edited by Kamal Boullata & Kathy Engel (review by Heather Bidell, Artvoice v7n6)

As our nation hovers at the precipice of change, anticipating our imminent political evolution, we ask ourselves what personal reincarnations should accompany this moment.

Peeping Tom's Cabin: Comic Verse, 1928-2008 By X.J. Kennedy (review by Laura Polley, Artvoice v7n5)

It’s hard to find fault with X.J. Kennedy. Winner of multiple prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim, the always-metrical Kennedy is widely credited for helping revitalize appreciation of form.

American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics edited By Claudia Rankine & Lisa Sewell (review by Kate Soto, Artvoice v7n4)

Defining the current moment in poetry is no easy task; more so for the fact that poetry has entered a constant state of redefining itself.

American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics edited By Claudia Rankine & Lisa Sewell (review by Kate Soto, Artvoice v7n4)

Defining the current moment in poetry is no easy task; more so for the fact that poetry has entered a constant state of redefining itself.

E Pluribus Unum: Peter Conners By Peter Conners (review by Ted Pelton, Artvoice v7n4)

Peter Conners is a poet and/or a prose poet. He is a fiction writer and an editor. He is an anthologist and an advocate for crossing boundaries in writing between poetry and prose. And soon he’ll have an autobiographical account coming out of his years spent touring with the Grateful Dead.

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