Category Archives: All

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Today’s word, from A.Word.A.Day, which is doing words from Dutch this week, is sooterkin. The second meaning seemed not to make sense (“get” an afterbirth?): 2. An afterbirth formerly believed to be gotten by Dutch women by warming themselves on … Continue reading →

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Women & Other Animals, Including Mothers & Daughters, Bonnie Jo Campbell

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Ellen Akins

When I was doing a visiting semester (too many years ago to count) at Western Michigan University, Jaimy Gordon (who teaches at WMU) asked me to review Bonnie Jo Campbell’s first book of short stories, Women and Other Animals, for … Continue reading →

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It’s complicated

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Ellen Akins

In the New York Times Book Review‘s “Bookends” of August 25 two sharp critical thinkers, Zoë Heller & Leslie Jamison, talk about the value, or overvaluing, of difficulty in literature. Heller made this observation about the new, & newly fraught, … Continue reading →

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Helen Phillips, The Beautiful Bureaucrat, a review

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Ellen Akins

My review of The Beautiful Bureaucrat, by Helen Phillips, ran in the Sunday Minneapolis Star Tribune on August 9th. It was positive, but the review in the NYT, by Jamie Quatro, was even moreso. An article by Phillips herself, also … Continue reading →

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The Orphan Master’s Son

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Ellen Akins

There are so many books I have to read–for work, research, reviewing–that I tend to get a lot of extracurricular works on the fly, in audio form, that is, taken in while I walk or run or drive (or putter … Continue reading →

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