Immediately engrossing, Ultranatural by Candice Wuehle (University of Iowa Press) is narrated by Lacey (or Love), whose voice is youthful and vulnerable as we follow her from tween years into young adulthood as she ascends to become the world’s biggest popstar…
Book Reviews
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘On Fire for God’ by Josiah Hesse
Opening with visceral imagery of crying, flailing children on the floor of a church, Josiah Hesse’s On Fire for God: Fear, Shame, Poverty, and the Making of the Christian Right (Pantheon Books) sets itself up to be an emotional and unflinching interrogation of evangelical Iowa. The book follows a religious childhood using gorgeous, descriptive language […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘We Can Do Better’ by Paul Johnson, edited by Curt Meine
Former Iowa state legislator Paul W. Johnson wore a number of hats throughout his life, including chief of what’s now known as the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Editor Curt Meine, a longtime friend and kindred conservationist spirit of Johnson, has gathered an insightful body of Johnson’s work in We Can Do Better: Collected Writings […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Fully Booked at DMPL: Food reads to inspire a cooking spree
Books and recipes share a secret: both are meant to be savored. I’ve always loved reading cookbooks, treating them almost like memoirs, full of a chef’s memories, family traditions and tiny windows into their lives. Recipe books and food-forward stories invite you to linger, imagine and taste your way through someone else’s experiences. That love […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Fully Booked at ICPL: Help yourself to self-help books
I’ll start by saying, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had to ask for a little help at one time or another. While the library can’t make your stressors disappear, we do have some resources on our shelves that might be of use to you. I’m talking about the old reliable 150s, the self-help and […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Dreams of Fields: Memory Traces of Iowa’s Past’ by Roy R. Behrens
As a born-again-Iowan, I delight in Iowa trivia and the relaying of impressive and surprising Iowa facts that challenge perceptions of a so-called flyover state. To me, these bits of information aren’t just trivia, but snapshots of a larger concept of Iowa, outside of whatever cornfields and caucuses that people imagine when they think of […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Groceries’ by Nora Claire Miller
Groceries by Nora Claire Miller spills into the hybrid terrain to challenge expectations of mixed-genre. It opens a narrative sentence and bulldozes parts of speech to reach its own truest conclusion. It forces its audience to re-learn how to read.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Burnt Mountain’ by Emily Wilson
The most prominent, consistent feature of these poems are the heady — even baroque, indulgent — descriptions of the natural world. (I wrote “descriptive” three separate times in my notes.) In “Heath Obscure” Wilson writes of “sumptuary / crumble underfoot” and “the meanly / spangled mollusk grays.” In another poem, “Attention,” Wilson describes “the butte […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Midwest Futures: Poems & Micro-Stories From Tomorrow’s Heartland’ edited by Randy Brown
Midwest Futures (Middle West Press) is a short, albeit stout collection of poems, short essays and stories that encapsulate the Midwest across time and various corners of our region. The collection ranges from science fiction to fantasy, horror (specifically the “sporror” sub-genre — that is, spore horror) and much more. This collection ultimately left me […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa: Musings on the Edge of the French Empire’ by Anna Barker
For several years, University of Iowa literature professor Anna Barker has produced a steady blizzard of commentary on classic French literature: Hugo, Stendahl, Dumas, Balzac. In her debut book, 13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa: Musings of the Edge of the French Empire (Ice Cube Press), Barker follows the trail of arguably the most important individual […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Black Superwoman & Mental Health: Power & Pain’
Toni Morrison once said, “For me the history of the place of Black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful.” I read the influence of Mother Morrison’s quote among the stories, essays and poems shared in the anthology The Black Superwoman & Mental Health (Peter Lang). This collection, edited by Drs. Venise […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Malleable and True: A Hybrid Craft Anthology from BRINK Literary Journal’
I have read many craft books, taken gobs of writing classes and read all manner of literature. In my personal time, I tend toward writing that challenges me as a reader and inspires me to try new things. I love hybrid work, which is disinterested in being placed solidly within a single genre. As such, I […]
