Book review: Poet Warrior — by Joy Harjo

(W. W. Norton & Company)In Joy Harjo’s second memoir, the poet, author, musician, playwright, and first Native American to serve as the U.S. poet laureate, reveals, in illuminating detail, the many and varied influences and confluences that came to guide or propel Harjo into manifesting her dream of communicating through her words. She tells of family members, ancestors, members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, recalls the stories passed down from one generation to the next, objects heavy with significance a … (read more)

(Knopf Publishing Group)If you read “The River” by Peter Heller, you will have a good idea of just what kind of literary territory you are venturing into — polished prose, erudite literary references, realistic characterizations, and high outdoor adventur … (read more)

(Scribner)Be prepared to fall hard, fast and deep for the people who inhabit this debut novel by Ash Davidson as they navigate changing livelihoods, a changing climate, and changing families. Rich Gundersen, his wife Colleen, and their son Chub, make thei … (read more)

(G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)In this hair-raising novel by Vermont author and Middlebury College alum, Brian, Ollie and Coco, still banded closely together for safety, make a chilling discovery about the “incident” last October when their s … (read more)

(Flatiron Books)Inti Flynn, biologist — impulsive, idealistic yet deeply knowledgeable and passionate about reintroducing wolves as a way of rewilding environments and thus combating climate change — cannot bear the possibility of their decimation as a sp … (read more)

(Penguin Press)In his distinctive journalistic form, Michael Pollan, food writer and garden sage, takes a closer look at three plant “drugs” humans use to alter our consciousness: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Given the focused scope of this book, I was … (read more)

(Santa Fe Writer’s Project)Mona — also known as Sad Millennial, infamous star of a viral video captured as her much-deserved job vanished before her eyes in the economic crash of 2008 — knows how to work hard, strives for perfection in everything she does … (read more)

(Scribner Book Company)Asha, daughter of Bengali immigrants, is a coder, and a brilliant coder at that. She is developing an algorithm that will attempt to endow AI, artificial intelligence, with empathy. When she reunites with her high school crush, Cyru … (read more)

(Spiegel & Grau)For someone like Catherine Raven — natural history teacher, former national park ranger, and self-professed loner — consorting with a fox, or appearing to anthropomorphize a wild animal, is costly at best, and uncool at worst. So when a st … (read more)

(Grand Central Publishing)It would clearly give away too much, but imagine for a second if this book title was “Seven Steamy Days in June” and you would have a very good idea of how this is going to go. Geneviève, pronounced John-vee-EV, now Eva, and Shan … (read more)

(Little Brown and Company)Clint Smith, poet, educator and writer, is the perfect tour guide for this road trip to America’s most racially-charged settings, as he visits, in person, the monuments and landmarks of slavery that exist today. He illuminates th … (read more)

(Flatiron Books)This biographical novel is a fictionalized historical account of the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter and the days immediately following. Wollstonecraft was courageous, with a sensibility and mind well ahead of her time, and this we … (read more)

(Algonquin Books)By every measure, Dave Cartwright was a hero and a legend in his small Pacific Northwest town — star quarterback of the Vigilante Falls high school football team, and a Marine, veteran of three tours in the Middle East. But Dave may have … (read more)

(Riverhead Books)Sammie and Monika’s marriage is not unusual. They’ve assumed roles, chosen at first, but, as time has passed, those roles, and how they have come to define them, are now limiting, causing resentments. Sammie has slipped into the main care … (read more)

If you’ve been feeling numb around the edges lately, as, wearily, year two of the global pandemic marches on, you are sure to be fully woken up by this brilliant but raw memoir. The title references the oft-held-belief that “any black boy who did not sign … (read more)