April 20, 2006

PBS Masterpiece Theatre doesn't often produce stinkers as bad as their adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. My review is here.

December 11, 2005

Review of John Irving's Until I Find You posted at culturevulture.net.

November 21, 2005

Congratulations to CBR contributor John Lehman on the publication of his latest poetry collection, Shorts: 101 Brief Poems of Wonder and Surprise. Milwaukee poet Charles Ries says in a review that "Lehman is a master of the understatement, as well as the third and most critical element of poetry—the ending. With great skill he takes a collection of common moments and elevates them." Shorts can be ordered by sending a check or money order for $12 (which includes tax and shipping) to Zelda Wilde Press, 315 Water Street, Cambridge, WI 53523.

August 30, 2005

Blurbed. Look for it on the inside front page of the paperback edition of David Foster Wallace's short story collection Oblivion: "No other contemporary American author has so painstakingly—and hilariously—mapped the incessant dysfunctional chatter that streams through our heads and masquerades as rational thought ... Oblivion represents Wallace's blossoming into a writer of profoundly artful coherence." Read the full culturevulture.net review here.

June 4, 2005

Review of John Wranovics's Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay posted at culturevulture.net.

March 28, 2005

No word as yet when it will appear in print (presumably in the Wisconsin Academy Review), but my essay on writer August Derleth, "Walden West and the Twilight of Transcendentalism," has won the Council for Wisconsin Writers 2004 Rediscovering Wisconsin Classics Award. The full slate of awards will be presented at the Council's Awards Convocation and Luncheon at the Wisconsin Club, 900 W. Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, on April 30th. See you there!

March 7, 2005

Congratulations to Wisconsin poet (and Cambridge Book Review contributor) Kate Huston on the publication of her chapbook Virgins on the Rocks from Parallel Press. Sensual, smart and funny, it's her most accomplished work to date. Taste this (from "Satin Lips"): "Then she applies a slippery / lip balm: sticky plumeria kisses / and mango wishes, / and waits for someone to notice / how soft she's become. / So sweet, / she smells of berry pears, / Madagascar vanilla, cherry / almond milk bath. Her hair / glistens with grapefruit elixir; / her face shimmers in mint aloe cream, limbs polished / like wet leaves and citrus."

February 14, 2005

Review of Porter Shreve's new novel, Drives Like a Dream, is posted at culturevulture.net.