In May, 2119, Thomas Metcalfe begins his search for a long-lost poem, “A Corona for Vivien,” by renowned British poet Francis Blundy. A corona is a poetic format, sonnets strung together in a chain, the last line of a sonnet repeated as the first line of the next. The corona most typically addresses one subject, that subject usually being a person whose life the poet wishes to celebrate. “Vivien” was written as a gift to the poet’s wife. He read it to her and a handful of d

Is a river alive? is the central question raised by the renowned nature writer Robert McFarlane in his latest book. His thesis is that rivers are living beings that should be recognized as such and protected by law like human beings. The author takes the reader to three imperiled river systems. To the spectacular Los Cedros River in Ecuador, the Chennai and its wounded lagoons and tributaries in India, and to the wild Mutehekau Shipu (Magpie River) in Canada. Ecuador became

Anika Fajardo’s novel, “The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore,” is a story about loss and finding your way forward to a new life. The book is told using a dual timeline, present-day Minneapolis, where Dolores is living, and Cali, Columbia, in 1989, where Delores was born.     We first meet Dolores as she is dressing for her mother Jane’s funeral. Dolores has experienced a lot of death in her 35 years—grandmothers, great aunts, her mother Elizabeth, and now her mother Jane. Delor

John Boyne’s most recent novel, “The Elements,” is an amalgam of four separately published novellas entitled “Water,” “Earth,” “Fire,”...

The Bradford-Shmukin family is struggling to stay together in a country falling apart. The family members, composed of Russian, Jewish,...

“The Academy,” by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham, is about the Tiffin Academy, its students, and staff. Tiffin Academy is a...