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Diane LeachAbout Diane LeachDiane Leach has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from Humboldt State University. Her writing has appeared in the Chicago Review, the Seal Press anthology Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture, and January Magazine. She lives in Northern California. Features
MoonwalkingMy God, could that man dance. Michael Jackson moved like the love child of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. [8 July 2009] What It Was LikeIn the early '80s Detroit, Motown was as unquestionable as air. Who didn't like air? [30 January 2009] Pink Floyd and the Girl on the FloorIf Roger Waters existed, if Pink Floyd existed, there was a tiny margin of hope, a filament of promise thinner than jeweler’s wire. [23 October 2008] BibliotherapySecondhand bookstores are about more than literary treasures. As Diane Leach explains, they contain personal histories that connect readers through the ages. [18 June 2008] Reviews
The Music Room by William FiennesThose who suffer from epilepsy, their families and friends, can only throw light at this neuro-spectre, as Fiennes does, showing us Richard in all his damaged Richardness, a man who truly haunted a castle. [5 November 2009] 
The Children’s Book by A.S. ByattThis demands a rare thing from today’s readers: an undivided, well-cultivated attention span. For those up to the task in this world of twittering, tweeting texts, the rewards are many. [27 October 2009] 
The Man from Kinvara by Tess GallagherGallagher's work often suffers unfairly beside famous husband's Raymond Carver.The Man from Kinvara should permanently remedy this. [7 October 2009] 
The Year of the Flood by Margaret AtwoodIf you aren't terrified, you aren't paying attention. Atwood admits to scaring even herself. [5 October 2009] 
Last Night In Montreal by Emily St. John MandelThere is an entire genre of fiction specializing in unreachable women: women who dissemble, lie, keep terrible secrets of pains inflicted upon them and the pains they, in turn, have inflicted on others. [13 September 2009] 
God’s Mercy by Kerstin EkmanThe book moves slowly through the lives of these people in Blackwater, Sweden as they acclimate to an increasingly modern world. The writing is gorgeously evocative of a place many of us will never see. [20 August 2009] 
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg LarssonI'm not usually a mystery fan, so it’s testament to how fine this story is that I was completely sucked in, and read obsessively until I finished it. [10 August 2009] 
The Size of the World by Joan SilberSilber's characters are all longing to stay where they are or, in the cases of those who return stateside, forever longing for foreign lands. [27 July 2009] 
A Brain Wider Than the Sky by Andrew LevyLevy succeeds in capturing something most migraineurs would find impossible to attempt: what it feels like to be in the maelstrom, the actual throes of migraine. [14 July 2009] 
Welcome to Oakland by Eric Miles WilliamsonPrepare yourself: reading this is liking drinking Everclear with a chaser of Drano. [6 July 2009] 
A Final Arc of Sky by Jennifer CulkinCulkin is at her most powerful when writing about the world of nursing, especially the adrenaline-infused magic of practicing medicine aboard a helicopter. [17 June 2009] 
Brian May: The Definitive Biography by Laura JacksonMy advice is this: if you want to learn about Brian May, put on News of the World. [16 June 2009] 
The Little Stranger by Sarah WatersWith Dickensian attention to architectural as well as social details, Waters successfully breathes life into an exhausted genre. [2 June 2009] 
The Servants’ Quarters by Lynn FreedIs this worth reading? For lovers of what we might conveniently label “the Jane Eyre genre”, yes. [31 May 2009] 
It Will Come to Me by Emily Fox GordonDeadly funny, this is immensely enjoyable, a welcome addition to a genre some of us cannot get enough of. [28 May 2009] 
A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith RakoffIn this homage to Mary McCarthy’s The Group, it would have been nice to see Rakoff push her characters harder, giving them crises beyond depleted trust funds and the death of irony. [14 May 2009] 
Don’t Cry by Mary GaitskillIn a world where publishers are buying less serious fiction, Gaitskill’s writing continues to set the bar for raw honesty made into art. [8 May 2009] 
Spiced by Dalia JurgensenJurgensen’s journey from office job to pastry chef makes for a harrowing yet rollicking ride, replete with the professional kitchen antics we’ve come to know and love via Bourdain, Ramsay, Batali. [30 April 2009] 
How to Cook a Tapir by Joan FryReaders of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible will recognize Fry’s trajectory from horrified incomprehension to dismay at departure. [8 April 2009] 
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana AthillIn accepting the inevitability of ageing (if we are lucky), we are wise to look to Athill’s memoir as a kind of guidebook, and relish the good fortune of growing old, rather than rue it. [2 April 2009] 
Important Artifacts and Personal Property by Leanne ShaptonThis is an amazingly creative, amusing, sad, and happy book. Read it, read it, read it. [17 March 2009] 
The Florist’s Daughter by Patricia HamplHampl began her gorgeous memoir at her dying mother’s bedside, her left hand composing Mary Catherine Teresa Eleanor Marum Hampl’s obituary, her right clasping her mother’s hand. [16 March 2009] 
The Music Teacher by Barbara HallForty-year-old Pearl Swain is, to hear her tell it, every “mean music teacher” that made your childhood miserable. [12 March 2009] 
Miles from Nowhere by Nami MunThis debut novel shares similarities with Janet Fitch's White Oleander, but Mun's gift for metaphor and first-hand knowledge of life as a runaway add a gritty touch. [6 February 2009] 
Eden’s Outcasts by John MattesonA fervent believer in man’s perfectibility, Bronson Alcott spent his life trying to convince others that human greatness was possible. [3 February 2009] 
Once Again to Zelda by Marlene Wagman-GellerAlas, Wagman-Geller's sentences are unwieldy, weighted with passive constructions. [7 January 2009] 
Fault Lines by Nancy HustonErra’s childish recounting of body parts that grow and those that don’t, including a count of her own lost baby teeth, is a rare moment where the narrator truly is only six. [8 December 2008] 
Best New American Voices 2009, ed. Mary GaitskillThough I feared "writers' workshop syndrome" when approaching this collection, I had implicit trust in Mary Gaitskill, and my trust was well placed. [21 November 2008] 
Mind Over Matter 4: The Images of Pink FloydDo consider this book as a gift for the Floydian in your life ... just make sure she only looks at the pictures. [4 November 2008] 
Things the Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett"To all the crazy girls I loved before: thank you, but I'm just too tired now." [22 October 2008] 
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate AtkinsonToss in mysterious fires and a train crash, and the Atkinsonian plot machine—a wonderful thing--is off and running. [13 October 2008] 
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCrackenThe trademark dry wit that made The Giant’s House so enjoyable is much in evidence here, even as McCracken unfolds one of life’s worst possible events. [25 September 2008] 
A Geisha’s Journey: My Life as a Kyoto Apprentice, by KomomoMore than a sumptuous picture book, this offers a rare visit to a fast-disappearing culture, and a respite of comfort and beauty. [6 August 2008] 
The SaviorWe see humanity at its highest—making art—coexisting with our most barbaric impulses. [10 July 2008] 
The Disorder of Longing by Natasha BaumanBauman crams so much into the story of the Victorian Bostonian, repressed wife, orchid hunter, and suffragette that the book goes from mildly unrealistic yarn to really annoying to toppling into hopeless silliness. [9 July 2008] 
Inglorious by Joanna KavennaInglorious's unremitting darkness makes it tough going; that you may relate to Rosa’s fall will make it all the more difficult. [25 June 2008] 
The World Before Her by Deborah WeisgallWeisgall's rendering of Venice is luminous, limpid, lovely (all those alliteratives are irresistible), and the prose carries the reader smoothly through the novel. [19 June 2008] 
The Sorrows of an American by Siri HustvedtHustvedt's ability to incorporate so much material so seamlessly makes reading this book like drinking a wonderful old burgundy: rich, complex, lush, smooth. [5 May 2008] 
A Dangerous Age by Ellen GilchristEvidently Gilchrist missed the sickening exposés of conditions at Walter Reed, or chose to overlook them. 
Jackalope Dreams by Mary Clearman BlewBlew's prose is as hardscrabble and finely whittled as her Montana subjects: protagonist Corey Henry is fierce, grumpy and, most unusual in today’s fiction, she’s older. [9 April 2008] 
Beginner’s Greek by James CollinsThough set in the present day, this story is resolutely old fashioned. We are free to focus on the characters as they worry about love, which interests them above all. [24 March 2008] 
Mudbound by Hillary JordanIt's impossible to read Mudbound without images of the Ninth Ward flooding one’s inner eye, or recalling the remarks made by former First Lady Barbara Bush. [10 March 2008] 
Christine Falls by Benjamin BlackThere's lots of rain, fog, and shadowy mists, as if a sunny day might wreck the storyline -- and then there's the "hand problem". [27 February 2008] 
Fair Shares for All by John HaneyBilled as “a memoir of food and family”, the book is truly about the suffocating English class system, where people are judged by the contents of their cupboards. [13 February 2008] 
People of the Book by Geraldine BrooksBrooks’ use of this damaged child is unrealistic, ultimately, and adds nothing to the text, unless you needed a reminder that war is bad for children and other living things. [22 January 2008] BlogsRe:Print: A Procession of Them [27 October 2008] |
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