Never in my memory has a book kept me from sleep or made me avoid everyday objects. Officially, Such Lovely Skin (Page Street Publishing) by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne is the most unsettling book I have ever read, full stop. The novel follows the narrator, a teen girl named Viv who is a relatively well-known video game […]
Book reviews
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Plain Spoken: Revisiting ‘Iowa,’ Patrick Moore’s neglected gay novel
This monthly column will explore the long and diverse history of literature’s Midwestern engagements. There is an established canon of American literature in which the Midwest plays heavily, as a both physical and social place.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Fully Booked: Reads to help fight burnout
The start of a new academic year can be another time of resolutions and new beginnings. Students and working professionals alike can get a charge from the fresh energy. Some of us recommit ourselves to staying on top of tasks and projects and getting our calendar together. Some of us need our paper calendars and […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Children in Tactical Gear’ by Peter Mishler
In Paradise Lost, Milton describes Satan’s army of fallen angels as engaging in swarm behaviors: “As bees / In spring-time,” upon their summoning the unholy host “Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air, / Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings.” By the 18th century, the supernatural ensemble of an epic — […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Another Woman’ by Hannah Bonner
Hannah Bonner’s Another Woman (Eastover Press, 2024) is a cutting surprise of a collection that explores the emotional stakes of a woman’s relationships. With acerbic and spare language that circles in on itself, Bonner instructs her readers to live in her body and experience these moments with both an intimacy and a distance that, as […]
Posted inFood & Drink
30 tasty tomes recommended by Iowa indie bookstores
For the 2024 Bread & Butter dining special, Little Village asked bookstores located around central and eastern Iowa about their favorite food-related titles. They responded with cookbooks, memoirs, nonfiction and fiction recommendations —and in some cases, a paragraph or two explaining their choices — including books from Iowa authors and/or focused on Iowa culinary history. […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Body Alone’ by Nina Lohman
The Body Alone (University of Iowa Press) is all encompassing. Nina Lohman’s memoir describes itself as, “…a lyrical nonfiction inquiry into the experience, meaning, and articulation of pain.” This articulation comes at the reader from all angles. Yes, there are first-person accounts from Lohman that one would expect from something like a traditional memoir. But […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Fully Booked: Comic books to expand your universe
I’ve been a lifelong comic book fan, but I go through seasons of feast or famine. Recently, I read a slew of comics after not reading any for roughly a year and a half. Luckily, the Iowa City Public Library’s collection always has titles of interest when I’m in the mood for superhero epics or […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Bjarki, Not Bjarki’ by Matthew J.C. Clark
I’ve been told a thousand times that readers want to be surprised. As someone who reads a lot, I don’t often find myself surprised. Bjarki, Not Bjarki by Matthew J. C. Clark (University of Iowa Press) is a wild outlier — bombastic and unyielding, the prose unravels and is woven into chaotic, precise new patterns […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Fully Booked: Travel books to guide your next vacation
It’s summer, which means that it’s time for that hallowed tradition of summer vacation. I have many fond memories of piling into my parents’ light blue and fake-wood-paneled station wagon to hit the road. Many times that meant Adventureland (the sky seats! the swimming pool! the bingo parlor!), but we definitely also set out to […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘A Grotesque Animal’ by Amy Lee Lillard
In her new hybrid memoir, Amy Lee Lillard starts out slowly, advising the reader that A Grotesque Animal (University of Iowa Press) is about a middle-aged woman coming into her own following her late-in-life autism diagnosis. That is the premise, it’s true, but it is not a fair synopsis of this book. The early sections […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Iowa’s Changing Wildlife: Three Decades of Gain and Loss’ by James J. Dinsmore and Stephen J. Dinsmore
In Iowa’s Changing Wildlife: Three Decades of Gain and Loss (University of Iowa Press), the authors survey 60 species of birds and mammals, providing brief histories of their existence in Iowa, a look at their population fluctuations over time and summaries of their current status, making this book a valuable resource for wildlife enthusiasts and […]
