Month: September 2020

Non-Fiction: Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen

September 28, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about The Deep End by Jason Boog.) Enough books have been published about the D.J. Trump Crime Family to fill a studio apartment. Ace investigative reporters Wayne Barrett and David Cay Johnston have […]

Edge of Normal Carl Norton

Thriller Edge of Normal Will Be Feature Film

September 25, 2020 Linda L. Richards 0

Carla Norton’s debut novel, Edge Of Normal, has been tapped for feature treatment by XYZ Films (Mandy) with Norwegian filmmaker Eva Sorhaug (90 Minutes) set to direct. From Deadline Hollywood: The film will be produced in association with Bold Films (Whiplash), which made a splash this week with Netflix acquisition The Guilty. The book has been adapted by Matt Venne and Lori Evans Taylor. The film follows a woman named Reeve LeClaire who has managed […]

Shark and Octopus

This Just In: Shark and Octopus by J.C. Sullivan

September 25, 2020 admin 0

Shark and Octopus is a comic caper that tells the story of Griffin Gilmore, whose unique profession is retrieving items of value without anyone realizing they were ever missing. Griffin has been hired to steal a key in a museum exhibit and replace it with a lookalike key. As he grabs the key Griffin fears he has set off the museum’s alarm, but all he hears is that sweet, sweet sound of silence. A man […]

The Magpie's Return

Young Adult: The Magpie’s Return by Curtis Smith

September 25, 2020 admin 0

Kayla perceives her world in vectors and variables, in quantities given and determined. She’s a prodigy. A genius. Yet there are equations she can’t solve. The vexing interactions of high school. The religious and populist politics that engulf the country. The nuclear exchanges that have darkened half the Earth. When the terrible tides crash into her life, Kayla is whisked from all she has known and deposited in a home for abandoned girls. Here, she […]

Rainstorm

Art & Culture: Rainstorm of Tomorrow: The Ever-Flowing Banquet of Philosophy by Renyuan Dong

September 25, 2020 admin 0

In Renyuan Dong’s newest release, Rainstorm of Tomorrow: The Ever-Flowing Banquet of Philosophy (MSI Press) the author has dexterously woven together several seemingly disparate themes. The storied philosophical themes of truth, ethics, and aesthetics together with the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, neuroscience, epigenetics, social Darwinism, utilitarianism, evolutionary psychology, and modern art — from the soberest rationality to the wildest conjecture. The idea seems to be to generate provocative or even alienated discourse on topics […]

Dogtown

Poetry: Even the Milky Way is Undocumented by Amy Shimshon-Santo

September 23, 2020 admin 0

Amy Shimshon-Santo says that her new poetry collection, Even the Milky Way is Undocumented, is a testament to the lost, the loved, the courageous. The collection includes the viral poems “no (no. 10)” which has been used by educators to teach personal consent to students. Pushcart Award nominee, Shimshon-Santo is a writer and educator from Dogtown, a place in Los Angeles that no longer exists. She says that this collection speaks to a moment in […]

Killing women

Non-Fiction: Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller’s Reign of Terror by Rod Sadler

September 23, 2020 admin 0

Don Miller was quiet and reserved. As a former youth pastor, he seemed a devout Christian. No one would have ever suspected that the recent graduate of the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice was a serial killer. But when Miller was arrested for the attempted murder of two teenagers in 1978, police quickly realized he was probably responsible for the disappearances of four women. Offered a still-controversial plea bargain, he led police to […]

Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune Returns

September 23, 2020 Linda L. Richards 0

Film versions of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 novel, Dune, have never been able to do the material justice, despite sometimes promising casts and treatments. From the advance peeks we’ve been given, the new adaptation due out later his year seems to be a more faithful take on Herbert’s book. That could be a good thing, because the original was a masterwork of worldbuilding. Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Enemy) and starring Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, […]

Six Feet Apart

This Just In: Six Feet Apart by Elena Greyrock

September 23, 2020 admin 0

Finding love in lockdown is no easy feat. But could social distancing turn up the heat, rather than smothering the flames? Six Feet Apart: Love in Quarantine is a futuristic look into a compelling interracial relationship that is forced to navigate a pandemic-governed world. The first book in the Luna James series, Six Feet Apart: Love in Quarantine explores the tensions, desires, and teasing limitations of life during an international pandemic. The year is 2025. […]

To Cross the Line

Moon Magic and To Cross the Line by Sandra Jones

September 21, 2020 admin 0

Sandra Jones offers two contrasting treats to readers wanting a trip to distant locales. In Moon Magic she invites readers to join the titular celestial body on a holiday around the rings of Saturn. And in To Cross The Line they go back to 1983 and join an Australian linguist who visits communist Albania and subsequently becomes embroiled in a high-risk espionage operation and an even more exciting romance. As a child, Jones contemplated the face […]