News - Book Reviews

News - Book Reviews

December 11, 2020

The first trade review for Jakob Guanzon’s ABUNDANCE, from Kirkus, calls the book an “impressive debut” and a “compelling picture of poverty, desperation, and pain.” Meanwhile, Soft Punk praises Guanzon’s prose as “surprising and dreamy, stuffed with longing and tenderness,” and the book’s “lyrical and respectful handling” of a story about a Filipino-American single father and son on the margins as “urgent and necessary.” Graywolf Press will publish the book on March 2, 2021.

December 11, 2020

Angie Thomas’s CONCRETE ROSE has its first starred review from Kirkus. They write: “A literary DeLorean transports readers into the past, where they hope, dream, and struggle alongside beloved characters from Thomas’ THE HATE U GIVE… A resounding success.” It has also been named one of Forbes’ “10 Most Anticipated Books of 2021.” Balzer + Bray will publish the book on January 12, 2021.

December 11, 2020

Daniel Hornsby’s VIA NEGATIVA continues to pull in glowing praise. Chapter 16 calls the book “a remarkable performance in narrative voice, a convincing rendition of late-life wisdom captured in evocative sentences,” while Englewood Review applauds it as simultaneously “humorously quirky” and “hauntingly spiritual.” A Buzzfeed list of “46 Books Our Indie Booksellers Were Grateful For This Year” names VIA NEGATIVA “a hidden gem,” and Hornsby “a writer to pay attention to.” Knopf published the book on August 11, 2020.

December 11, 2020

Harvard Review favorably compared Maxim Loskutoff’s debut novel RUTHIE FEAR about “the hardscrabble way of life common to the often-overlooked rural communities of the American West” to his debut collection of short stories, COME WEST AND SEE, commending how he “neither divides his characters into villains and victims nor presents them as objects of condescension or condemnation. His focus is rather on the ways in which conditions that produce despair create and maintain the kind of collective psychic inflammation that can incite the impulse to violence—even rampage—in any of us.” W.W. Norton & Company published the novel on September 1, 2020.

December 11, 2020

Editor Daniel Loedel’s debut novel, HADES, ARGENTINA, has been selected as a “January 2021 Indie Next Pick,” and was featured in the latest issue of Vanity Fair as a debut worth diving into in the new year. The book also received a glowing review from BookPage, which praised Loedel’s “clean, tight and engaging” prose. Riverhead Books will publish the novel on January 12, 2021.

December 5, 2020

Science Magazine praised Eben Kirksey’s THE MUTANT PROJECT, writing that the book “provides readers with an intriguing picture of the events, ambitions, and deceptions that led up to the [first gene-edited] twins’ birth, but these insights are only part of what makes it such a fascinating read. At its core, the book is a complex analysis of the global culture in which the project of heritable human genome editing is now developing.” St. Martin’s Press published the book on November 10, 2020.

December 5, 2020

San Francisco Book Review calls Samantha Silva’s MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL “an ideal Christmas read, especially for a year when we could all use a little joy and good humor.” Flatiron Books published the book on September 22, 2020.

December 5, 2020

Booklist gave 2034 by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis a starred review, calling the book "[c]hilling yet compulsively readable work of speculative fiction…Ackerman and Stavridis have created a brilliantly executed geopolitical tale that is impossible to put down and that serves as a dire, all-too-plausible warning that recent events could have catastrophic consequences.” Meanwhile, Evan Osnos of The New York Times writes: "The scenarios evoked in 2034 are deeply informed and brutally plausible. Ackerman and Stavridis have lent their immense skills to a thriller we can’t afford to ignore. This is a precise and literary prophecy about muddled motives, tragic escalation, and the fantasies of greatness." Penguin Press will publish the book on March 9, 2021.

November 20, 2020

Ted Chiang was bestowed the Imagination in Service to Society Award by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation during their 2020 Unleash Imagination online event. The award was given “for his thoughtful and thought-provoking science fiction, leading us to examine in fresh ways our own beliefs.”
Knopf published the book on May 7, 2019.

November 13, 2020

Library Journal calls Eben Kirksey’s THE MUTANT PROJECT “a fascinating albeit chilling account of how human embryo engineering moved from the realm of sf to scientific fact. Recommended for anyone interested in the brave new world of genetic engineering technologies.” St. Martin’s Press published the book on November 10, 2020.