Although Iowa Poet Laureate Vince Gotera’s collection of speculative poetry, Dragons & Rayguns (Final Thursday Press), is a panoply of allusions (and although I’d boldly state that I understood many of them), it is also in turns sincere, self-deprecating, thought-provoking and tender.
Local book reviews
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘My Father Called Us Monkeys’ by Mario Duarte
When my friend Mario Duarte asked me to read his latest book, a series of connected short stories about a Mexican-American boy growing up in western Illinois called My Father Called Us Monkeys published by Ice Cube Press, I was both excited and a tad apprehensive.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘(Re)present: Racism and Resistance in Iowa’
Important books exist. They are written and published every day. There are people dedicated to creating and publishing work that changes and educates people. Sometimes, they put out important work that is accessible and educational and aimed at helping the youth in Iowa understand their home and their histories. (Re)Present: Racism & Resistance in Iowa […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Brazos’ by Justin Carter
This January, while visiting Tulsa with a friend, I made an effort to reconnect with my redneck roots. We went firing at an indoor gun range. Across the street was a church with a sign announcing the coming of its gun sale. Later, at the tattoo parlor, as his own gun pierced me with a […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Such Lovely Skin’ by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
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 […]
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 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 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 […]
