NCLR will share a “new” book review weekly: usually from the most recent or forthcoming online issue, but sometimes, in recognition of current events, from a back issue.
Saturday Review: “A book of pages waiting to be turned” a review by Christina G. Bucher of Minnie Bruce Pratt collection The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems. (2003) from NCLR 15 (2006).
Since it is summer, we’re rerunning older book reviews. This week, we honor the memory of Minnie Bruce Pratt, who passed away early this month.
Saturday Review: “A Little Mercy Left In The World After All” a review by Jim Coby in NCLR Online 2017
Matthew Griffin. Hide. (2016)
Michael Keenan Gutierrez. The Trench Angel. (2015)
Reviewer Coby writers, “Comes now a pair of eloquent and engaging books from first time North Carolinian novelists Matthew Griffin and
Michael Keenan Gutierrez, each tackling the subject of love in his own unique voice.”
Saturday Review: “Giving Fictional Shape To History” a review by Kristina L. Knotts of Robert Morgan’s As Rain Turns to Snow and Other Stories. (2017) in NCLR Online 2018
About this 2017 collection, Knotts wrote, “More so than some of Morgan’s previous fiction, many of these stories look at the difficulties posed by chronic illness and aging, but all show Morgan’s impressive range as a writer.”
Saturday Review: “Love Just The Way It Is” a review by Sally F. Lawrence of
Elizabeth Spencer’s Starting Over:Stories. (2014) in NCLR Online 2015. “As a master of the short story form, Spencer continues to offer her readers fresh perspectives about familial connections in Starting Over.”
Saturday Review: “Love and Death in North Carolina Poetry”: a review by Catherine Carter
Jessica Jacobs. Take Me With You, Wherever You’re Going 2019.
Wayne Johns. Antipsalm 2018.
Eric Tran. The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer 2020.
Saturday Review: “People As Part, Community As Sum” a review by John Hanley
De’Shawn Charles Winslow. In West Mills. (2019)
Anna Jean Mayhew. Tomorrow’s Bread. (2019)
“… while In West Mills asks us to examine how a community can be a foundation for its inhabitants, Tomorrow’s Bread asks us what happens when that foundation is stripped away,”
Saturday Review: “Spreading Awe: Childhood and Heritage in New Poetry” a review by Sarah Huener
Joseph Bathanti. The 13th Sunday after Pentecost. 2017.
Michael McFee. We Were Once Here. 2017.
“These are two poets with distinctive voices, voices that observe their youth, but which are also wiser than the past selves we meet within their pages.”
Saturday Review: “Tallying the Cost of Addiction in Appalchia:” a review by Dale Neal
David Joy. When These Mountains Burn. 2020.
Meagan Lucas. Songbirds & Stray Dogs. 2019.
In a serendipitous event, both David Joy and Meagan Lucas, both writers living in the NC mountains, have new books out this year AND were reviewed together for their last books.
Saturday Review Rerun: Lee Smith’s last novel, Blue Marlin, was reviewed by Barbara Bennett in NCLR Online 2021. Bennett calls Blue Marlin a classic “tale of initiation” of teen Jenny, loosely based on Smith’s own childhood adventure to Key West.
Charles Frazier’s latest novel, The Trackers, is out now and we look forward to reading it for a review in the fall issue. Frazier’s work is no stranger in NCLR pages; his last novel, Varina, was reviewed by Terry Roberts in our 2019 Online issue.