For her latest collection of short stories, Kali White VanBaale bolts out of the gates with the attention-grabbing, slice-of-life “Hyatt and the Arch.” She doesn’t slow her literary gait until the final page of the final piece, “Hyatt Pune.” Between these two offerings is a wealth of storytelling, enriched by the interplay and shared context […]
Book Reviews
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Dreams are for the Dead’ by S. Elias W Sharp
“‘You ever smoke meth?’ he asked, casual like he was offering a cigarette.” So begins a passage in S. Elias W Sharp’s unforgettable debut memoir, Dreams are for the Dead. A former roommate poses the question to Sharp in the empty apartment they used to share. The furnishings are now all gone. The encounter continues, […]
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Fully Booked at ICPL: New DC Comics absolutely worth your time
DC Comics’ Absolute titles are reimagined and radical new takes on their most popular heroes, and have genuinely got me excited about reading comics again. The set-up is fascinating: The characters of the Absolute universe are at a disadvantage, because this world bends towards darkness and evil. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were the first […]
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Fully Booked at DMPL: Prose books authored by poets
I am a lifelong poetry lover. It began with my Shel Silverstein obsession as a child and carried through into my adulthood, as I discovered amazing poets like Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds and Sandra Cisneros. I love poetry the same way I love short stories; it’s incredible the way a skilled writer can distill complex emotions […]
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Book Review: ‘Ultranatural’ by Candice Wuehle
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…
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
