Reviewed by Cheyenne Marco University of South Dakota Let’s get one thing out of the way: I am not a birder. But one doesn’t have to be to enjoy Larkin Powell’s Great Plains Birds. Written for a general audience, Powell’s work moves beyond the litany of lists and maps of a standard guidebook and expresses… Continue reading Great Plains Birds by Larkin Powell
Reviewed by John C. Krieg Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy is a work that is indeed full of hope. We of the species Homo sapiens have failed abysmally in our efforts to preserve nature and are now in the position where we will… Continue reading Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy
Reviewed by Nadia Benjelloun Bombs, beards, and belly-dancing. Rather than just a fun alliteration to say, this phrase would summarize what would come to mind upon hearing the word Arab. This is the epitome of orientalism. It’s all due to narrative, but just as there are misconstrued Arab and Muslim representations from sources that range… Continue reading Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz
Reviewed by Candice Louisa Daquin Poetry has reclaimed its prior popularity with the easy access of the internet; anonymous and known poets can write on any subject in any style and find an audience and succor. There are those who do it for a career, those who write because they must and if they sell… Continue reading Pantheon by Eric Syrdal
Reviewed by Sascha Harris The novel, Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga, documents the life of Jude, a Syrian refugee that moves to Cincinnati, Ohio at the start of the Syrian War, leaving all that she knows behind. As Jude slowly adjusts to her new home, her surroundings and American culture as a whole,… Continue reading Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
Reviewed by Karisma J. Tobin Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream tells the haunting story of a mother’s experience of an unfamiliar town. Vacationing with her young daughter, Nina, Amanda finds herself unsettled. It soon becomes clear that there is something strange about this place. It’s the worms. You have to be patient and wait. And… Continue reading Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
Human or vampire, no one can escape their fate. Born and raised in the small town of Grundy Hill, West Virginia, Abigail Taylor knew that her life was anything but normal. Everyone in town knew her father was weird and knew better than to date his estranged daughter. On her 21st birthday, Abbi awakens a… Continue reading The Slayer: Hell Awakens by Meg Sechrest
Author's note: This book is meant for mature audiences When, in the spring of 1592, fictional eighteen-year-old Constance Shakespeare joins her brother, Will, in London, she is in for any number of surprises. Expecting opportunities not available under her father’s domination in Stratford, she finds life in London far more complicated and challenging, yet exhilarating,… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Younger Sister by Geoffrey Craig
Review by Ibrahim S. Fawzy In this fascinating book Professor, Hany Saed takes his readers on a journey into the visual world where he searches for his own identity as well as ours. The book documents a journey through social media, especially Facebook, which lasted nearly eight years. The author`s -eight-year experience loaded with events… Continue reading Until the Break of Dawn: An Electronic Autobiography by Hany Saed
Reviewed by Katy Scrogin The atmosphere of Joshua Harmon’s The Soft Path is heavy, hanging over a still-living landscape holding out against mechanical incursions and cheap plastics, sagging infrastructures and colonizing data streams. This three-part study stares hard at what we have become and continue to turn into, what we allow ourselves to inflict on… Continue reading The Soft Path by Joshua Harmon
