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Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

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Neon Green

October 27, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s the same 1994 you remember, except in this one there are spaceships. They don’t do much – just land in the backyard and sit there for 9 months. But when the Allen Family wins a visit from a ship around the same time that Cynthia (the mother) is diagnosed with cancer, so begins a fracturing of their world that wouldn’t look too out of place in our 1994. The Review: There’s something pleasant about reading a novel […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: A Visit to October Country, Alternate History, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Literature, Margaret Wappler, Neon Green, review, Reviews, TNBBC, Unnamed Press

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Conversations

July 22, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A man lays awake at night replaying a conversation he had with a friend earlier in the day, about a movie the two of them had seen and their wildly differing conceptions of it – all spinning off the sight of an incongruous Rolex on the wrist of a lowly goatherd… The Review: Have you ever been talking with a friend – a friend you respect and admire and have known for a while – when they […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, César Aira, Conversations, Fiction, Katherine Silver, Literature, Literature in Translation, New Directions, Philosophy, Reviews, TNBBC, Translation

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A Planet for Rent

July 6, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: When aliens finally do show up, it won’t be to induct us into their company – but rather to intervene on our behalf, because we can’t be trusted not to destroy ourselves and the world. So begins this collection of stories about a universe where Earth has become a protectorate of the galaxy and what it means to be an Earthling when Earth doesn’t mean that much anymore… The Review: The best science fiction is not the kind full […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature, Sci-Fi • Tags: A Planet for Rent, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Cuba, Cuban Sci-Fi, David Frye, Fiction, Literature, Literature in Translation, Restless Books, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Short Stories, TNBBC, Translation, Yoss

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The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies

April 22, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A woman called Honey grapples with, well, what being a woman means while three Maenads torment her around the edges (and even, perhaps, directly). The Review: Have you ever given much thought to a sigh? Like, really thought about it – the movement of the body, the emotion expressed therein, and so on? I confess that I never gave much thought to a sigh (other than in the moment of shoulder-loosening release that sometimes comes with sighing) […]

Categories: Contemporary, Plays • Tags: Avant-Garde Theater, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Contemporary, Meg Whiteford, Plays, Plays Inverse, Poetic Theater, Poetry, Reviews, The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies, Theater, TNBBC

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The Seamstress and the Wind

April 14, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: When César Aira was a boy, a seamstress lived in his town and had a son about his age. When she believes that the son has disappeared, she jumps in a cab and tears off into the Argentinian countryside with a hilarious and fantastical set of pursuers that include her husband, an angry bride-to-be, the wind, and maybe even the author himself… The Review: After falling under Aira’s spell with An Episode in the Life of a Landscape […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Argentina, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, César Aira, Fantastical, Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Magical Realism, Metafiction, New Directions, Reviews, Rosalie Knecht, Surrealism, The Seamstress and the Wind, TNBBC, Translation, Writing

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An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

March 30, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: An Episode… recounts the story of one Johann Mortiz Rugendas, a German landscape painter who traveled to Argentina twice during his life. On that first trip, as he strives to capture something new, an accident changes and mars him for life – but also, perhaps, provides the door he had been seeking… The Review: When is a biography not a biography? Presumably when it makes up facts – but what is the line between what is made up […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Argentina, Art, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, César Aira, Fiction, Johann Moritz Rugendas, Latin America, Literature, New Directions, Painting, Reviews, TNBBC

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The Naked Eye

February 3, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: On a state-sponsored trip to East Germany, a young Vietnamese woman is kidnapped and taken to the other side of the Wall. So begins a strange journey that will take her to Paris and through various iterations of life, as well as see her develop an obsession with the films of Catherine Deneuve. But the films may have more of an impact on real life than first meets the eye… The Review: What is it about our favorite […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Catherine Deneuve, Fiction, Literature, New Directions, Paris, Reviews, The Naked Eye, TNBBC, Yoko Tawada

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Does Not Love

December 30, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Robert and Viola are not-quite-happily married in a bleak alt-universe Indianapolis. Viola wants rough sex, Robert might just be too nice, and shootings of Obadiah Birch scientists happen seemingly every few days. When Viola meets a slimy FBI agent, things take a dark turn. The Review: What is it, do you figure, that has inspired the young men publishing out of the best indie presses to take on Big Pharma? What is it about drugs – not the […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Big Pharma, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Does Not Love, Fiction, James Tadd Adcox, Literature, Reviews, Satire, TNBBC

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Bloodletting in Minor Scales / The Invention of Monsters: Two Plays from Plays Inverse

December 1, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Two plays from Plays Inverse, an inventive publisher of poetic theatricality or theatrical poetry (depending). In one, a strange dissolution of reality after a mother’s attempted suicide.  The other provides a series of short scenes, meant to be interpreted as you will. The Review: I’ve been sitting on these two plays for several months now (and ultimately decided to review them together) because I didn’t quite know how to talk about them. I revisited them a few […]

Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Plays • Tags: Bloodletting in Minor Scales, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, C. Dylan Bassett, Contemporary, Justin Limoli, Plays, Plays Inverse, Poetry, Reviews, Stage, The Invention of Monsters, Theater, TNBBC

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