berniE-zine - Featured Book Reviews

Part memoir, part meditation, part art theory, Mark Doty's essay collection weaves historic and cultural references with anecdotes from the author's life as he considers his relationship with a single painting by Dutch artist Jan Davidsz de Heem. read the full review here

Not only has Washington, DC, served as home to many poets, but it has also served as the inspiration for many poems. In this anthology, Kim Roberts has collected one hundred poems inspired by this city.  read the full review here

Matt Prior gambled big when he quit his job to launch a web site that reported financial news in verse. Bills piled up, as did the size of his family's debt. With no stable job, a marriage on shaky ground, and a father with severe Alzheimer's, Prior stumbles into a more lucrative business -- dealing high-grade  marijuana to white-collared friends and former co-workers who don't know where to score it outside of a college campus. read the full review here

"Once you admit to yourself that you want to be an artist, that you want nothing more in your life than to paint, you've taken a great weight upon your shoulders." These words, spoken by Ivy Wilkes, the protagonist of Liza Campbell's debut novel, prove to be quite prophetic as the burden of Ivy's own artistic desires drives her into the unseemly world of art forgery. read the full review here

In his previous poetry collections, John Surowiecki has proven to be a memorable voice with an ability to draw on the humorous aspects of even the most commonplace situations to create poems that delight as they resonate with authenticity. In this new collection, his poems take a much more personal and introspective turn as he focuses on his parents. read the full review here

This collection of short stories was to include one story dedicated to each of the five senses, but Calvino passed away after completing only three: Taste, Hearing, and Smell. Calvino's widow, Esther, suggests the reader consider this work "not as something Calvino started and left unfinished but simply as three stories written in different periods of his life."  read the full review here

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we're revisiting an older review of Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel, a collection of linked short stories by well-known Irish women writers including Emma Donoghue and Kate O'Riordan, edited by Dermot Bolger.  read the full review here

Published by Marick Press, this debut poetry collection features an array of subject matter as richly diverse as Sze-Lorrain's background. The poet's imagistic flights of fancy are grounded in the real and sensual world, and infused with heritage and history.  read the full review here

With his translation of Beowulf, Seamus Heaney has more than succeeded in bringing this epic poem into a contemporary language that will ensure the readability of the story by a wider populace for years to come. The result is a work that is poetic and beautiful without contrivance, yet avoids "dumbing down" the language.  read the full review here

Co-winner of the 2009 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize, Gibson is like the ghosthunter in the abandoned factory as we readers hold our collective breath wondering what the flashlight's spot will illuminate next.  read the full review here