About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Philip Bump
Positive Booklist Bump illustrates his ability to distill complex and thought-provoking topics into digestible bites ... While the book can occasionally get bogged down in number soup, Bump breaks up the potential monotony of the material with easy quips... and simplified explanations and summaries.
Ted Conover
Positive Booklist Conover’s ability to depict all characters he encounters with grace and dignity shows a restraint that makes this a work to be devoured by readers from empty, forgotten places and beyond.
Amy Feltman
Positive Booklist Feltman’s writing succeeds in depicting each of these characters with nuance and grace, though the book can sometimes fall flat at the intersection of their important experiences. This is far from a deterrent, though, as readers are sure to find characters to root for and identify with.
Richard White
Positive Booklist Reading like a conversational history lecture in book form...White’s mostly captivating book chronicles the deception around the death of Jane Stanford ... He digs into the politics of the university’s founding, and it’s here that White at times gets bogged down in responding to all the questions presented by the mystery. Outside those chapters, though, this is an eminently clear, sharp, and readable account, featuring staccato sentences and breezy chapters. As he interrogates the past, White leaves the reader wondering if the truth is always in the answers.
Marissa R. Moss
Rave Booklist ... stunningly crafted ... Moss interlocks her subjects’ stories for a captivating structure, jumping between them to effectively create a cohesive narrative of feminist uprising in \'the good ol’ boys club.\' This must read for music fans displays Moss’ extensive knowledge of Nashville’s Music Row scene; she’s been writing on women in country music for years, and she speaks of the genre’s ebbs and flows with an authoritative, assertive voice ... speaks (sings, really) volumes about the rise of female artists in country music, and how far they still have to climb.
Maud Casey
Positive Booklist Casey turns her lyrical prose back to fiction with this work inspired by the real stories of women in Paris’ Salpêtrière hospital ... Through thorough research and a cutting pen, Casey elevates these women back to their deserved place in history, bringing to life those who were reduced to mere photographs. Newcomers to Casey’s work might be daunted by these vignettes, which sometimes seem more stream of consciousness than cohesive narrative. The book isn’t for the fainthearted, but those interested in early medicine will find the stories of Charcot’s patients fascinating, and fans of Casey’s previous works will rejoice in the new one.
Gunnhild Øyehaug, Tr. Kari Dickson
Positive Booklist Though the novel is hard to follow at times, Øyehaug builds tension with run-on sentences and almost no paragraph breaks. Even with the unconventional writing style, the story is a page-turner. Some may find Present Tense Machine a little too fantastical, but fans of speculative fiction or the film Interstellar will be in reading heaven.
Matthew Pearl
Positive Booklist Pearl begins to get lost in something of a name-dropping soup, sometimes losing the story to a barrage of facts. Those facts are important, though and with more than 230 sources, Pearl painstakingly cultivates an accurate account of events. But he’s at his best when he leans into more expressive language ... Despite these ebbs and flows, The Taking of Jemima Boone is an authoritative primer on Kentucky’s white settlers and Indigenous populations.
Tarana Burke
Positive Booklist Burke’s writing is blunt, and shines when she is describing her journey toward activism ... In many passages, Unbound reads like a diary entry, a simple recounting of memories without narrative flair. Burke’s deeply personal story foregrounds important rhetoric of our time and will speak directly to readers who can relate to her struggles and those who want to empathize with them better.