Looking to read more Indiana authors?
Every month, we’re releasing a book review highlighting a new book by a Hoosier author, reviewed by a Hoosier writer. Check back every month for a new recommendation or look for the review in your local paper.
All Book Reviews
The Islands
By Dionne Irving | Reviewed By Sarah Layden
Short stories can be like their own small islands, the peaks of different lives emerging as if from the ocean or the fog. In The Islands, a new short story collection from University of Notre Dame professor Dionne Irving, the characters are spread across oceans and continents, all connected to the island of Jamaica. Immigrants […]
Small Marvels
By Scott Russell Sanders | Reviewed By Barbara Shoup
Once, walking in the woods near dusk, I came upon a stand of pine trees and stopped short. The trees were blue. Blue. Over the years, I’ve stood before a painting of water lilies by Monet so long that the colors on the canvas and began to move. Watched shafts of evening sunlight fall through […]
Letters from Michiana
By David Hoppe | Reviewed By Jim Poyser
For 15 years, I worked with David Hoppe at NUVO Newsweekly in Indianapolis. It was a halcyon time as one of my weekly editorial tasks was being on the receiving end of a brand new column by Hoppe. In the late 1990s these pieces were delivered via a hard plastic floppy disc — you know, […]
Arab Indianapolis
By Edward E. Curtis IV | Reviewed By Sara Hindi
I was born in the Middle East and Arabic was my first language. I am a proud Arab American of Palestinian-Jordanian descent, and I have lived most of my life in Central Indiana. I consider Indiana to be home, as much as I also consider Jordan to be home. Growing up Arab in the United […]
African Americans in Indianapolis
By David Leander Williams | Reviewed By Kisha Tandy
I was born and raised in Indianapolis. It is my home. I have spent my entire adult life researching and celebrating African American history in the city. This has meant walking the streets of downtown Indianapolis, in particular Indiana Avenue, visiting the Walker Theatre for a discussion or performance or leading a tour in Ransom […]
THE LOST ETHERIDGE
By Norman Minnick (Editor) | Reviewed By Walton Muyumba
On 19 January 1991, three months before his 60th birthday, a group of American and international poets gathered at the American Cabaret Theater in Indianapolis to celebrate Etheridge Knight’s life and art. But Knight was ailing physically: cancer was ravaging his lungs and he had not fully healed serious injuries from a hit and run […]
Unfadeable
By Maurice Broaddus | Reviewed By Crystal Allen
There are only two kinds of people in the world: The caught, and the uncaught. In UNFADEABLE, Indiana author, Maurice Broaddus, features both, and provides the reader with a thought-provoking story about the power, resilience, strength, and determination of young people, and how adults underestimate these rising voices. This journey begins when we meet thirteen-year-old […]
Booth
By Karen Joy Fowler | Reviewed By Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
The story of the Booth family starts with one crazy man and ends with another. You know the bulk of the ending already—how John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln point-blank in the head, at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. How he was hunted down and killed. Karen Joy Fowler’s latest epic novel, Booth, is […]
SAVAGE TONGUES
By Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi | Reviewed By Brian Leung
It happened to me not too long ago. I was preparing filet mignons. They were seasoned and brought up to room temperature before hitting the cast iron skillet. From out of nowhere, the voice of my friend Alice popped into my head. She reminded me to touch the center of the steaks to test if […]
JUDY LED THE WAY | THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE, THE BIG FISH, AND THE STUBBORN DONKEY
By Sandy Eisenberg Sasso | Reviewed By Suzanne Walker
How do librarians decide what to add to a library? They do it through a process called Collection Development. When developing a collection for the children’s section of a local library, youth librarians think about lots of factors including: the age range for the section, local interests and needs, populations that should be reflected in […]
