If you like rediscovered works of classic fiction, well this is literally the only review of this excellent 1967 novel on the whole internet. Get in on the ground floor before NYRB Classics scoops it up.
Props to the curators at the MFA Boston for hanging the Sargent and the Sherald like this so I’d have a perfectly apt header for my review.
I wrote about Bryant Rollins’s 1967 novel Danger Song, a long out-of-print work that is an essential part of Boston’s literary history.
I wrote about Bryant Rollins’s 1967 novel Danger Song, a long out-of-print work that is an essential part of Boston’s literary history.
Very sorry, John. I appreciated the opportunity to work with you. Wishing you the best.
Sad to hear about the Washington Post book section. I had the opportunity to contribute there a few times and it was always a great experience.
People are focused on the two books I most disliked, as well as my top pick. But the books in between were probably the best reviews
-let me go on by Paul Griffiths
-The Sleepers by Matthew Gasda
-Such Great Heights by Chris DeVille
-Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux
-Across the Acheron by Monique Wittig
I read and reviewed 53 new books this year. Here's a look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
My top 5 reads of 2025:
Lion by Sonya Walger and The Bewitched Bourgeois by Dino Buzzati @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social
Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag and Radio Treason by Rebecca West @mcnallyeditions.com
Dante: The Essential Commedia by Prue Shaw @liveright.bsky.social
My worst reads of 2025:
—Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux
—The House on Buzzard’s Bay by Dwyer Murphy
—At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca
—Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser
The @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social Classics get a lot of attention, but their contemporary books are also quote good. This year, I especially liked Sonya Walger’s Lion, Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection and Paul Griffiths’ let me tell you/let me go on.
Here are the two I’m most proud of this year: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/11/a...
bradymp.substack.com/p/does-gaugu...
I know people are reading to the end because the most clicked link in this post is the very last one, the review of the book I hated the most this year.
I read and reviewed 53 new books this year. Here's a look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Lovely new review of the Tree of Life
"The Tree of Life is an elegant and compelling exploration of how scientists have pieced together the story of life on Earth.."
"What could have been a dry, academic treatise is instead elevated to a engrossing mystery..."
bradymp.substack.com/p/reviews-8-...
I have a spooky short story up at Necessary Fiction this morning and wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some books and stories from writers I admire who happen to have been featured in some of the same lit mags I’ve been in.
I reviewed Anika Burgess's fun new history of early photography for The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...
Sue Prideaux’s new Gauguin biography plays fast and loose with history so bourgeois art lovers can enjoy their pretty pictures in blissful ignorance.
My review of Laura Spinney's "PROTO: How One Ancient Language Went Global" is up at the Wall Street Journal. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
Matthew Gasda’s The Sleepers is out today. Check out the review that commenters begrudgingly called “fair” and “generous.”
Over on Substack, I thought a bit about negative reviews and what the books I've reviewed negatively have in common.
And most recently, I wrote about Joe Mungo Reed’s Terrestrial History—a speculative, but emotionally grounded exploration of climate collapse and interplanetary colonization for @bostonglobe.com.
On Substack, I did a deep dive on Vincenzo Latronico's "Perfection" and its withering dissection of my very own microgeneration.
I got to interview Joyce E. Chapin about her comprehensive history, "The Franklin Stove," which explores not just the titular invention, but the very origins of the American quest for consumable comfort. @wbur.org
