Category Archives: Reviews

Beyond Piety: A Review of “Dearest Sister Wendy…” by Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Gabriella West

Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship, Orbis, 2022, $24.99 paperback; $16.99 on Kindle A collection of letters between a religious publisher in upstate New York and a cloistered nun in Norfolk, England, has enraptured me. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Health, Reviews | Tagged Catholicism, connection, faith, friendship, health problems, holiness, letters, mortality, Orbis, Pope Francis, Quidenham, Robert Ellsberg, Sister Wendy, spirituality | Leave a comment

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: A Review of ‘Too Early to Know Who’s Winning’ by Karla Huebner

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Gabriella West

Karla Huebner’s latest book seems as if it’s the story of a friendship between two women during the harrowing Trump years. Superficially, it is, but it soon becomes clear that it’s a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about the anxieties of … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, Reviews | Tagged aging, autobiographical fiction, feminist fiction, friendships, Health, Karla Huebner, loss, middle age, Midwest, review, stress, Too Early to Know Who's Winning, Trump Years | Leave a comment

Review: Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Gabriella West

What a life Brian Cox has had. The weird zaniness of some of his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Grand Central Publishing, 2022, $14.99 on Kindle), is amplified by the fact that the “Editorial Reviews” section on the … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews | Tagged acting, brian cox, putting the rabbit in the hat | Leave a comment

The Letters of Shirley Jackson—a Preview!

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

I’ve been busy reading the delightful, yet somewhat vexing Letters of Shirley Jackson (Random House, 672 pp., $14.99 on Kindle) and writing a long review of it! Finding a home (irony alert, as Shirley was always focused on the physical … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 1950s, cruelty, dysfunctional relationships, female breadwinners, feminism, husbands, marriage, mental health, Morris Minors, Shirley Jackson, The Internet Review of Books, The Letters of Shirley Jackson, Vermont, women writers, women's lives | Leave a comment

Review: Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

Occasionally, I will pick up a library book (and I vow to do this more, post-pandemic). I wanted to review a striking, mostly forgotten novel by 20th-century English author Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978), whose long life spanned almost a century … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 20th-century women writers, bisexuality, Communism, feminism, historical fiction, Jewish fiction, lesbian fiction, NYRB, Penguin, relationships between women, revolutionaries, Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, women in love | Leave a comment

Once You Are Mine by Gabriella West ~ Book Review

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Gabriella West

Originally posted on Lily Michaels:
In this pandemic love story set in the tense, unpredictable summer of 2020, 21-year-old Alex Martinez gets out of San Quentin after serving three years for a nonviolent crime. He’s hardened by his time inside…

Posted in LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged Alex, Bookbub, Lily Michaels, MMRomance, Northern California, once you are mine, pain, pandemic, real, Terry | 1 Comment

Review: H Is for Hawk

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Gabriella West

I wanted to do a belated review of a memoir I bought last summer and finished late last year, Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk (Grove, currently $4.96 on Kindle). Hard to write a short review of this gorgeous book. … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged England, grief, hawks, healing, Helen Macdonald, memoir, naturalist, nature, outsiders, power, T.H. White, wildness | Leave a comment

Review: Moving On—Two Ex-Beatles’ Very Different Lives in the 1970s

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Gabriella West

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Beatles lately. Perhaps it’s because I started off the New Year by reading Mark Lewisohn’s masterful Tune In (2013), the first book in his proposed Beatles’ trilogy. It’s long and exhaustive, but you … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews | Tagged 1970s, Astrid Kirchherr, Beatles, Bermuda, Coming Up, depression, diaries, Double Fantasy, ex-Beatles, Fred Seaman, Future, John and Yoko, John Lennon, Man on the Run, Mark Lewisohn, Murder, Myth, Nowhere Man, paul mccartney, Robert Rosen, Starting Over, Tom Doyle, truth, Wings | Leave a comment

Review: Between Heaven and Hell by David Talbot

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Gabriella West

Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of My Stroke (Chronicle Prism, 176 pp, $22.95, January 2020) David Talbot—journalist, popular historian, longtime San Francisco resident, and author of Season of the Witch—has written a surprisingly vulnerable, intimate, often funny and engaging … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Health, Reviews, San Francisco, Writing | Tagged Between Heaven and Hell, David Talbot, Health crises, Hollywood, meaning, memoir, mortality, nonfiction, Salon Magazine, San Francisco, Strokes | Leave a comment

A Knight’s Tale: Montargis Gets a BookBub Promo, Starting Today!

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Gabriella West

The follow-up to A Knight’s Tale: Kenilworth is now featured on BookBub and available for 99 cents at all the major ebook retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play)! Writing the book in the winter of 2017 through … Continue reading →