Non-Fiction: Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement: A Year Inside the Optimization Movement by Carl Cederström and André Spicer

March 19, 2018 J. Kingston Pierce 1

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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 Alfred W. McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century.) If you are looking for a book for someone with a perverse sense of humor about contemporary narcissism, it would be […]

Non-Fiction: In the Shadows of the American Century
by Alfred W. McCoy

January 17, 2018 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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 Gar Smith’s The War and Environment Reader.) Historian Alfred W. McCoy has long chronicled U.S. government abuses of power, starting with his ground-breaking 1972 book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast […]

Non-Fiction: The War and Environment Reader
by Gar Smith

November 9, 2017 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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 Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough.) Out of the many ridiculous claims Donald Trump made on the campaign trail in 2016, perhaps his most absurd assertion was that the U.S. military […]

Non-Fiction: No Is Not Enough by Naomi Klein

July 27, 2017 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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. The youngest child of crime novelist Robert Terrall, aka Robert Kyle [1914-2009], Ben Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about Noam Chomsky’s Requiem for the American Dream). The oligarchy now perched in the White House has inspired scores […]

Non-Fiction: Requiem for the American Dream
by Noam Chomsky

June 30, 2017 J. Kingston Pierce 1

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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. The youngest child of crime novelist Robert Terrall, aka Robert Kyle [1914-2009], Ben Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about recent works examining the dark side of the CIA.) Noam Chomsky’s Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 […]

Non-Fiction: Three Digs into the CIA’s Dark Side

May 8, 2017 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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. The youngest child of crime novelist Robert Terrall, aka Robert Kyle [1914-2009], Ben Terrall has contributed two previous reviews to January Magazine: one of John Goins’ The Coptic Cross, and the other of Sin Soracco’s Come to Me.) […]

Crime Fiction: Come to Me by Sin Soracco

November 10, 2016 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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. He’s the youngest child of author Robert Terrall [1914-2009], who—under the pseudonym Robert Kyle—penned a series of novels featuring Manhattan private eye Ben Gates, as well as other crime-fiction works.) Sin Soracco is a unique voice among crime […]

Crime Fiction: The Coptic Cross by John Goins

November 1, 2016 J. Kingston Pierce 1

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a freelance 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. He’s the youngest child of author Robert Terrall [1914-2009], who—under the pseudonym Robert Kyle—penned a series of novels featuring Manhattan private detective Ben Gates, as well as other crime-fiction works.) John Goins’ first novel, A Portrait in the […]