Steve Donoghue’s posts from the original Open Letters Monthly Archives.
Steve Donoghue grapples with the initial irritations and eventual pleasures of Joanna Smith Rakoff's A Fortunate Age: "The process that changes your reaction will be familiar to anyone who’s ever been seduced by New York (a sordid, delectable experience that can happen repeatedly throughout your life – and against which there is no known vaccine)."
Read MoreIn his review of BoneMan's Daughters, Steve Donoghue takes Ted Dekker to task, writing, "the experience is constantly given an extra-gummy sheen by carrying a freight of Biblical and quasi-Biblical double meanings."
Read MoreSteve Donoghue reviews the structurally bold gay novel "Before I Lose My Style".
Read MoreSteve Donoghue review "The Great Perhaps," "Joe Meno’s best book to date by several orders of magnitude."
Read MoreFind out more about Danisi and Jackson's biography of Meriwether Lewis by reading Steve Donoghue's informing review: "but we know what kind of a book Danisi and Jackson have written: meaty, entertaining, and best of all, definitive."
Read MoreInto the Beautiful North, writes Steve Donoghue, is "a strong, sensitive, wonderful novel, one richly deserving of wide success."
Read MoreSteve Donoghue digs into Donald Breckenridge's stylistically arresting "You Are Here"
Read More"Patient Zero is full of sharp dialogue, rapid-fire action, fascinating (and, the author somewhat disturbingly promises us, entirely fact-based) patho-science, and a wide array of deftly drawn characters."
Read MoreIf a book of this unsettling oddness and power can be found, virtually at random, on the lists of one self-publish print-on-demand outfit, we might well lie awake wondering what else we're missing, out there in the sprawling infinitude of computers and ISBNs.
Read MoreIn his review of, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Steve Donoghue explains why this book might make you want to "punch" the author...
Read MoreIn his review of a new biography of Philip II of Macedonia, Steve Donoghue encourages readers, "Those interested in ancient history – and yes, Alexander fans – are urged not to miss it."
Read MoreThis is a place for all of my writing about books.