If you’ve ever visited carp(e) libris reviews before, then you know I usually review books from the indie publishers: literary fiction and nonfiction, memoirs, works recently translated to English, even art books. But did you know I’m a sucker for thrillers and mysteries too? My shelves are not only lined with the [...]

 

 Johansen Interview: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ever since space exploration first became a real possibility, the people of America have been looking towards the skies with hopeful wonderment. Finally, there is something more mysterious for humans to focus on than our own complicated lives. Susan Woodring’s collection of short stories,Springtime on Mars, captures this sense of the unknown, in regards to [...]

Two men of very differing personalities have excused themselves into lives of crime. Their upbringings and inner workings may be as opposite as Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison, but here they are, living together as drug traffickers. Arkansas by John Brandon gives the reader a humorous, sometimes dark look into the lives of Kyle and Swin, who [...]

In 1961, Tell Me Another Morning was published for the first time. This novel, based on Zdena Berger’s teen years in several concentration camps of Nazi Germany, has been lost to the world for quite sometime. But Paris Press has brought it back, publishing it once again for a new generation of readers.
I think the [...]

Part of the Japanese Literature Series by Dalkey Archive Press, The Glass Slipper and Other Stories features World War II era shorts in a setting unique to American readers. In fact, of the three from this series I’ve reviewed so far, this one is my favorite due not only to the setting, but the contemporary [...]

I hope you’ll excuse my brief absence. I was taking my leisure with some skunk. Skunk A Love Story, that is. When I first stumbled upon this book, I was immediately taken in by the premise: A man, obsessed by the odor of skunks, falls in love with a woman equally [...]

Everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and Tanner’s has been dogging him for over 20 years. It followed him from Belize after a two-year Peace Corp stint that was supposed to help him do something good. But Tanner wonders if some people do good things naturally while others have to work a little harder [...]

Narrated by an unnamed man, The Unforeseen gives us a good look at a most uncommon human. The man, who suffers from a perpetual cold, finds himself alone in a strange city. At the mercy of strangers from beginning to end, he starts going by the name “Serge”. Although he often blurts out an embarrassing [...]

Yesterday I posted my review of the book Voices of the Lost and Found by Dorene O’Brien. (If you haven’t entered to win the book yet, make sure you do!) Today I have the interview with Dorene, as promised. If you’re a writer, reading these interviews with the authors can really give [...]

Voices of the Lost and Found gives the reader a well-written collection of short stories, each crafted in a distinctively different voice than the one before. How author Dorene O’Brien manages to carry all these personalities around in her head, I can’t even begin to imagine. But this, together with edgy story lines and delicious [...]