Brooks's Reviews

In Aliya Whitley’s The Loosening Skin, humans periodically shed their skin along with the emotions and identities embedded in them, to varying degrees. For the novel’s protagonist, Rose Allington, the effects of this process are extreme: she is always driven to leave her life and her loves behind. This literal molting process explores the transient and permanent aspects of self, of love, and of our own histories. It is sparse, engaging, strange, and deeply affecting. — Brooks

In her new book The Bird Way, Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds, expands on fresh discoveries in the science of birds. Ackerman once again uses her engaging prose to shine a light on the startling ways in which birds are very much like us. Her lyrical and informative depiction of “the bird way” is the most delightful, inspiring, and exciting book I’ve read in ages.
Don’t miss our virtual event with Jennifer Ackerman on June 30th.
 

In his new, large format release, revered author and illustrator David Allen Sibley explains the mysterious behaviors of the most common backyard birds. With vivid and exacting illustrations to accompany the text, What It’s Like to Be a Bird is both an accessible entry point for young birders and rewarding to the more experienced individual. 

In her essay collection Places I’ve taken My Body, Molly McCully Brown brings the insight and sensitivity of a poet to discuss her experiences with cerebral palsy. I absolutely loved the broad expanse of topics she touches upon: pain and the body, the memory and the self. In prose both blunt and expressive, Brown examines how we move through space and the loneliness caused by both mobility and immobility.

In this new collection, National Book Award winner Justin Phillip Reed dazzles the reader with inventive syntax and word choice. At its core, The Malevolent Volume is a critique of the injustice originated and maintained by the culture and systems of white supremacy. These poems—at once esoteric and coloquial—remind the reader of just how gorgeous the English language can be.

This book stunned me. From the first poem to the last, I was astonished at Clay’s grounded and lucid style. In this collection, he grapples with the impermanence of both growth and decay and with the quickly changing state of our planet. However, amidst this mourning, Clay manages to imbue his collection with hope and a yearning for the future.