Margaret Atwood’s Latest, ‘The Heart Goes Last’, Takes Us Back to Our Future Dystopia
True love ultimately endures in The Heart Goes Last, but so do the real terrors ever-present in Atwood's novels.
Diane Leach
Diane Leach has a Master's Degree in English Literature from Humboldt State University. She writes for PopMatters.com and blogs at Theinsufficientkitchen.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
‘The Pawnbroker’s Daughter’ Tells Us How to Write Well and Live Beautifully
Maxine Kumin's final memoir is painfully brief, but like all her work, ever lyrical.
Disco, AIDS and Nuclear War Permeate Jane Smiley’s ‘Early Warning’
Smiley doesn’t overlook defining political moments in part two of her trilogy, including the 1981 presidential election of Ronald Reagan and the ensuing sociopolitical shift rightward.
When a Memoir Isn’t: Sally Mann’s ‘Hold Still’
In chapter after chapter of Hold Still, Sally Mann unfolds the dark secrets of her father, her mother, her adulterous great-grandmother -- everyone, it seems, but Mann herself.
‘Lovers At the Chameleon Club’ and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Lou Villars is a French athletic champion -- and a spy for the Nazis.
When the Past Sits at Your Dinner Table: ‘The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook’
Fania Lewando wrote the first European vegetarian cookbook in Yiddish. Then the Nazis the came.
Is Judy Blume’s ‘In the Unlikely Event’ Unlikeable?
In Judy Blume’s latest and possibly final novel, In the Unlikely Event three plane crashes leave a lasting impact. The novel itself, however, leaves nary a trace.
Nora Pouillon and the Birth of the Farm-to-Table Movement
Nora Pouillon's restaurant was the first in America to receive organic certification.
The Struggle for Literacy, the Need for Booze, the Bay Area Book Festival
As the Bay Area Rapid Transit escalator carried me upward, toward the first annual Bay Area Book Festival (6th and 7th, June), I repeated my new mantra. I would buy no books.
‘A God in Ruins’ Perpetuates the Deep Sadness in Atkinson’s Writing
Kate Atkinson's characters, from private investigator Jackson Brodie to Teddy Todd, are often lonely people with surprising secrets.
A Haint in Detroit
A tale of a city and family in flux, The Turner House is a gripping, nuanced reading, heralding the arrival of a major talent.