Review: A Dazzling Debut—The Divorcées, by Rowan Beaird
No-fault divorces are currently legal in every US state, making it relatively easy to end an unhappy marriage. It may be hard to imagine how recently “irreconcilable differences” were not […]
Review: A Warning to Heed and Hope to Build with Mark Larson’s Working in the 21st Century
One of the first questions a stranger usually asks to identify who you are is, what do you do? But our job is more than how we make money, it […]
Review: Celebrating Well-Made Books—The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P.J.M. Marks and Stephen Parkin
For more than 18 centuries, paper was made with rags—old clothes, sails, and ropes—the same way it had first been fashioned in China. But, by the 19th century, the process of […]
Review: Bewitching Hollywood Flappers and Fairies in Kathleen Rooney’s From Dust to Stardust
At one point in Kathleen Rooney’s bewitching new novel From Dust to Stardust, the iconic Hollywood flapper Doreen O’Dare says to an interviewer, “What I’ve figured out is that the […]
Toya Wolfe’s Last Summer on State Street Wins $25,000 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award
Most readers are familiar with the more prestigious annual book prizes out there, among them the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the PEN America Literary Awards. A new […]
Review: Take a Seat at the Bar in Island City, by Laura Adamczyk
When was the last time you told a story to a stranger at a bar? Not an anecdote about your day at work, or that funny internet meme that’s going […]
Review: Anti-Racist and More, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, by Felicia Rose Chavez
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez Haymarket Books, 216 pages, $14.97 Chicago’s Haymarket Books promotes The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize […]
Book Review: Push Butt, Receive Bacon, Hand Dryers, by Samuel Ryde
Hand Dryers By Samuel Ryde Unicorn Publishing Group Distributed by the University of Chicago Press Books In the appropriately senseless year of 2020, Hand Dryers, by Samuel Ryde, was published. […]
Call for Chicago Lit Writers, Reviewers, and Subjects!
If you’re interested in covering the Chicago and Midwest lit scenes, and want to promote local authors, booksellers, or publishers, contact Third Coast Review Lit Editor Dan Kelly at dan@mrdankelly.com. […]
Book Review: South Side Chick Lit, Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West
Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West Park Row Books, 312 pages, $27.99 In the closing pages of Catherine Adel West’s Saving Ruby King, two men and two women can […]
Book Review: Gritty, Oppressive, but Not Ugly Enough, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair Gets the Graphic Novel Treatment
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, adapted and illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger Ten Speed Press, 384 pages, $24.99 Kristina Gehrmann’s graphic novel version of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 […]
A Literary Look Back at 2019
The Third Coast Review Lit Department had a very full year, with new writers Patrick T. Reardon, Terry Galvan, and Carr Harkrader joining us and sharing their impeccable insights. Reardon […]