We published 30 book reviews this year and read many more. And out of all the books we’ve read, here are a handful of our favorites. You’ll find a mix of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did! Nicole Emanuel You Are Here Whether you are craving a …
This is the last “what’s new” post of 2024. Plenty of new books to check out! Happy reading — and happy new year! Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy Edited by Robert Lopresti The way we treat the world is a crime-fifteen of them, in fact. Some of the best and most honored …
More than 35,000 people from more than 100 countries visited EcoLit Books this year. And this post shows where they spent most of their time. Here are the top 25 most-visited book reviews and web pages from January until now. The first page is no surprise but the second did surprise me given that it …
Guest book review by Gene Helfman. In Arroyo Circle, JoeAnn Hart deftly weaves a tale with multiple threads. As the story develops, the different characters become incorporated into the fabric through their disparate involvement in a tragedy. But the final product is less a weaving or tapestry and more a spider’s web. The characters, and the …
From the snake tempting Adam and Eve to the sheep that saved Odysseus from the Cyclops, animals have featured prominently in literature from the very beginning of literature. Today, animals play leading roles in many bestselling novels, from the dog Almondine in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle to Marcellus, the Pacific octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures. In a …
Random House, 2023 “Shivers of lust passed through his elytra as he found her scent grow stronger,” and there we are, in the head of an Elm Bark beetle, one of many POVs in the thoroughly enchanting novel North Woods by Daniel Mason. The beetle had been deposited in this wooded piece of land in …
There is a conversation, repeated several times, during the powerful novella Of Cattle and Men by Paula Maia, translated by Zoë Perry: “Like they say in these parts: as long as there’s a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.”“And another keen to eat it,” concludes Edgar Wilson. Edgar …
Ray Keifetz is author of two poetry collections, the second published this month: Museum Beasts. Of the collection Richard Peabody, editor of Gargoyle Magazine writes: “Ray Keifetz’s new poetic myths are a mash-up of Oz, del Toro, and trippy end of the world nightmare vibes. Come down these barbed wire boulevards filled with graves, ghosts, …
We can’t review every book we receive. But that doesn’t stop us from highlighting them. Here is a selection of new titles worth checking out… Horse Show By Jess Bowers “From the tale of Lady, the mare who read a Duke University psychologist’ s mind, to television palomino Mr. Ed’ s hypnotic hold over Wilbur …
JoeAnn Hart, long-time contributor to EcoLit Books, is the author of three novels (including Float) and a forthcoming short story collection from Black Lawrence Press: Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival. This collection, the winner of the 2022 Hudson Prize, includes stories that have been published by a number of literary journals, including Prairie …
Cierra Horton McElroy’s debut novel, Atomic Family, is not an environmental novel of the twenty-first-century, yet its themes of impending nuclear devastation and eco-anxiety nevertheless feel all too real. Atomic Family is the story of Nellie, Dean, and their son, Wilson, with the novel’s main narrative playing out over a couple of days through these …
