books
V.27 No.15 | 4/12/2018
Book Review
Beyond Ink and Whiskey
Leslie Jamison's newest work is full of feeling and analysis that leads the way to truth
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath
The heart of Leslie Jamison's The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath is the grip of alcohol, its reputation as the literary choice of romantic self-destruction. It's not so much the substance itself so much as “the surplus of mystical properties” that people assign to it.
V.27 No.10 | 3/8/2018
Book Review
Magic in the Medium
Luis Urrea's novel works moving literary feats
The House of Broken Angels
The House of Broken Angels is a tremendous work—full of joy, yes, but regret, too—capable of humor typed right on to the page with phrases that will provoke tears.
V.27 No.6 | 2/8/2018
Book Review
New York Moments
Neon in Daylight finds a story for the directionless
Neon in Daylight
Neon in Daylight is a New York story, and ever-lurking, edgy side of the city inserts itself into the story as though it were a character as vital as any human one.
V.26 No.52 | 12/28/2017
Book News
Print's Not Dead
A short list of the year's best books
Maggie Grimason tells of the individuals, and associated reads, which stood out in 2017.
V.26 No.47 | 11/23/2017
Author Interview
Slant Truths
Erin Adair-Hodges' poetry distills experience into verse
Erin Adair-Hodges has a knack for making the particular resonate on a universal pitch, as in one of the opening poems in her first collection, Let's All Die Happy, where she writes of childbirth, “I held him, spent, and knew then there are no truths,/just lungs that labor to form a breath, each one/knocking into the next, until/long trains of them/move a body along, which seems to/need explaining.”
V.26 No.46 | 11/16/2017
Book Review
From Ink Black to Paper White
Graphic novel Ink in Water doesn't shy away from the hard stuff
Lacy J. Davis gives structure to her life in meaningful ways in her new graphic novel Ink in Water.
V.26 No.43 | 10/26/2017
courtesy of the artist
Book Review
Into the Unknown
Investigate the paranormal through the pages of Riley Mitchell's book
The Essential Paranormal Bucket List
The Essential Paranormal Bucket List rounds up paranormal wonders from the world over.
V.26 No.39 | 9/28/2017
Callum Bondy
Book News
One Life, One Sentence
Literary project makes a stop in ABQ
Six Words Fresh Off the Boat continues a collection of sentence-long stories, this time tackling migration.
V.26 No.38 | 9/21/2017
Author Interview
Staycations
Writer’s work provides a roadmap to New Mexico
Eco-Travel New Mexico offers advice that responsible travelers need to plan a trip which conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people.
V.26 No.37 | 9/14/2017
Book Review
Getting to Know Samantha Irby
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life inspires the desire to ... meet in real life
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
Samantha Irby's varied collection of essays makes the topics truly felt, accessible to all and approached with unflinching realness.
V.26 No.31 | 8/3/2017
Book Review
New Mexico After Dark
The high desert underworld of Buckskin Cocaine
Buckskin Cocaine
There is a particular emotional distance with which each character is held, until the moment when zooming in close and revealing vulnerability will be most wrenching.
V.26 No.28 | 7/13/2017
Author Interview
10 Questions for Melinda Snodgrass
Let's get to know local literary master Melinda Snodgrass a little better.
V.26 No.23 | 6/8/2017
Book Review
Memory Rendered into Poetry
Jacqueline Woodson's visit and her novel, Another Brooklyn
In Another Brooklyn, two-parts poetry and one-part prose, it's not just the story that resonates, but the knack that Jacqueline Woodson has for infusing the world she creates with the contemplativeness that comes with her earnest poetry.
V.26 No.19 | 5/11/2017
Book Review
All Roads Lead to Florida
Sarah Gerard's dark evocations of the sunshine state
Sarah Gerard's book of essays, Sunshine State, is an ode to the many faces of her home state, with a the dizzying toggle between internal landscapes and external forces, shifting between the poetic and the starkly unsentimental.
V.26 No.18 | 5/4/2017
Summer Reading
Baby, It's Hot Outside
Beat the summer blues with ice cold reads
Maybe we can dispel the heat by turning inward and finding the swamp cooler that chugs away within each of us. Stoke your own internal air conditioner with these super chilly reads.
