Book Reviews

Cover of I Have To Tell You

I Have To Tell You

I Have To Tell YouVictoria Hetherington0s&1s, 201469,000 words$6.00 Buy: ebook While reading Victoria Hetherington’s novel, I Have To Tell You, I occasionally found myself wanting to shake one or two of the characters for a host of self-destructive behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. And just as my frustration rose, inevitably one of Hetherington’s precisely crafted sentences…

Private Tutor to the Stars: On THE HOOPS WHISPERER by Idan Ravin

Private Tutor to the Stars: On THE HOOPS WHISPERER by Idan Ravin

The Hoops Whisperer: On the Court and Inside the Heads of Basketball’s Best Players Idan Ravin Gotham Books, 2014 246 pages Buy: book | ebook As a national champion during his only year of college, as the third overall pick in the NBA draft, and as a recipient, this summer, of a five-year, $124 million…

First Down Te Ching: On The Tao of Chip Kelly

First Down Te Ching: On The Tao of Chip Kelly

The Tao of Chip Kelly: Lessons From America’s Most Innovative CoachMark SaltveitDiversion Books, 2014128 pages$12.99 Buy: book | ebook Today marks the beginning of the 2014 NFL season, America’s favorite consumption-based present-time activity. Odds are that a family, friend, or loved one in your life has already burrowed themselves away for an evening immersed in…

Picasso’s Tears

Picasso’s Tears

Picasso’s TearsWong MayOctopus Books, June 2014323 Pages$24 Buy: book Few books of poetry this year will have a more interesting back story than this one. Born in China in 1944 and raised in Singapore, Wong May came to the United States in the 1960s to attend the Iowa Writers Workshop. Between 1969 and 1978, she…

Talkativeness

Talkativeness

Talkativeness Michael Earl Craig Wave Books, April 2014 104 pages $18.00 Buy: book If you were among those persuaded by Thin Kimono (2010) that Michael Earl Craig was a poet to watch, you may consider your intuitions confirmed. Talkativeness dwells a little more deeply in the voice of that earlier volume, becoming more at home…

Around the World in 209 Teams: A Review of Thirty-One Nil by James Montague

Thirty-One Nil: On the Road With Football’s Outsiders–A World Cup OdysseyJames MontagueBloomsbury, 2014, Bloomsbury330 pages $18.00 Buy: book | ebook The work-ditching phenomena that our globe experienced throughout June and July, known as the World Cup, is really just the polished and gawked-at tip of the World Cup iceberg. Beneath the surface, there is the…

The Pedestrians

The Pedestrians

The Pedestrians Rachel Zucker Wave Books, April 2014 160 pages $18.00 Buy: book Rachel Zucker is a writer of daunting productivity. The Pedestrians is her sixth poetry collection since 2002; she has also published a memoir, co-authored a book about home birth with Arielle Greenberg, and co-edited two anthologies—this in addition to having three boys…