Book Reviews by Title - P (78)
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Dario Fo
- Publisher Europa Editions
- Date Published August 2015
- ISBN-13 978-1-60945-274-2
- Format Paperback
- Pages 240pp
- Price $17.00
- Review by Olive Mullet
Dario Fo, the 1997 Italian Nobel Laureate for Literature—known for being an actor, playwright, comedian, director, songwriter and political campaigner—has now written his first novel, The Pope’s Daughter, about one of the most infamous ladies in history, Lucrezia Borgia. This novel, which claims to be the real truth, gives another side of Borgia. She will appeal to contemporary women as a real survivor in her turbulent times, but everyone should be able to enjoy the sardonic Greek chorus comments on the machinations of the early popes and dukes ruling Italy during the Renaissance, behavior which has parallels in today’s national and international politics.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Laurette Folk
- Publisher Big Table Publishing
- Date Published June 2014
- ISBN-13 978-0983066613
- Format Paperback
- Pages 270pp
- Price $16.00
- Review by Patricia Contino
The particulars of a Catholic girlhood have endured through centuries. Friends, enemies, and colleagues never tire of offering unsolicited psychoanalyses of that guilt-laden live, learn, and worship by rote existence. What outsiders will never understand is that abiding by those rules leads—if one is willing—to a freedom they can never appreciate.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Brandon Shimoda
- Publisher Octopus Books
- Date Published February 2013
- ISBN-13 978-1-935639-51-0
- Format Paperback
- Pages 100pp
- Price $14.95
- Review by Patrick James Dunagan
Witty to no end, Brandon Shimoda writes smart-ass hipster poems. The title of his latest collection, Portuguese, stems from a first day of first grade childhood teasing incident on the school bus when he was mocked by a “a fourth grader, skinny, with grassy blond hair and the face of a horse” who drawled out “in a squealing voice, Portugueeese, Portugueeese!” Shimoda is not in the least Portuguese. However, the incident not only gives him the title of this collection but clearly shapes the irony and humor that run throughout, along with for better or worse contributing to his larger views regarding humanity. One way or another, the event led as well to his researching “words of Portuguese origin introduced into the Japanese language, mostly by Portuguese Jesuit priests.” The list is a curious wonder in itself, at once as much practical as fanciful:
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- Book Type Fiction
- by James Friel
- Publisher Tupelo Press
- Date Published May 2012
- ISBN-13 978-1936797011
- Format Paperback
- Pages 252pp
- Price $16.95
- Review by Olive Mullet
The “Little Man” and the “Fat Princess,” as children in the spring of 1880, trail a red balloon—a “swollen heart”—across Washington Square. And thus begins James Friel’s The Posthumous Affair, a beautifully written and unique, daring love story. Even the end is a risky stand on the part of the author.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Will Boast
- Publisher University of Iowa Press
- Date Published September 2011
- ISBN-13 978-1609380427
- Format Paperback
- Pages 184pp
- Price $16.00
- Review by Ryan Wilson
Will Boast’s Power Ballads, winner of the Iowa Award
for Short Fiction, can at times feel as layered and as
over-produced as its moniker. For one, the book, thematically
linking the lives of various musicians, unfolds as a short-story
cycle, which by the nature of the form allows a freedom and an
unevenness to the storytelling on par with, say, Van Halen
post-David Lee Roth.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Matt Mauch
- Publisher Lowbrow Press
- Date Published December 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0982955307
- Format Paperback
- Pages 100pp
- Price $13.00
- Review by Renee Emerson
In Prayer Book, Matt Mauch’s poems
are prayers for the simple, everyday things. They are “Prayers
to be prayed over French fries, green beans, sausages, the
rest,” and “Prayers for those flying solo on jet plans ascending
and descending through turbulence reminded of the ghost on a
bicycle ghost-riding stairs.”
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Alan Cheuse
- Publisher Fig Tree Books
- Date Published March 2015
- ISBN-13 978-1-941493-00-7
- Format Paperback
- Pages 392pp
- Price $15.95
- Review by Nate Zachar
Prayers for the Living is a sprawling novel, a family epic. Written by the late Alan Cheuse, who was a commentator for NPR, his vast conversational experience is apparent throughout the book, which is told through conversation, narrated by a woman named Minnie Bloch, who chronicles the life of her grandson, Manny, and his joys, his struggles, and his demons.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Maureen A. Sherbondy
- Publisher Main Street Rag
- Date Published March 2008
- ISBN-13 978-1599481081
- Format Paperback
- Pages 40pp
- Price $10.00
- Review by Roy Wang
One indication that a book is worth reading is the number of
notes made in the margins, and I ended up with quite a few
scribblings all over the clean, short poems of Maureen A. Sherbondy.
Praying at Coffee Shops, with the striking cover image of a
Jew praying at the Wailing Wall, suggests it will be about the
modern Jew finding her place in the world. While essentially true,
the stark image of close-eyed prayer belies the nuance, humor, and
worldliness that come through in these poems. Nowhere is this more
clearly exemplified than the title poem, whose full name is “Praying
at Coffee Shops in the South”:
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Anna Rabinowitz
- Publisher Omnidawn Publishing
- Date Published September 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1890650452
- Format Paperback
- Pages 96pp
- Price $14.95
- Review by Renee Emerson
Present Tense, by Anna Rabinowitz, phases through
genres, using poetry as a vehicle to explore politics, gender,
culture and human nature. The book opens with a prologue, a
single sentence that declares the purpose of the book and the
long list of who the book is for:
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- Book Type Edited
- by Kevin Morgan Watson
- Publisher Press 53
- Date Published September 2009
- ISBN-13 978-0-9824416-9-5
- Format Paperback
- Pages 202pp
- Price $14.00
- Review by Henry F. Tonn
This is the second year of this anthology which features
poetry, flash fiction, short-short story, short story, genre
fiction, creative nonfiction, young writers, and novella. There
is a total of 28 works from 21 authors and the editor proudly
points out in his introduction that entries came from 32 states
and eight foreign countries. Two of the winners were from
overseas: Jerusalem, Israel and Bogotá, Columbia. All judging
was done blind.
