Jun 03 2026
Deeeeeep siiiiiiigh. I know I touted this as the seminal guide to understanding the Arsenal fan — as that’s how it’s long been sold to me — but after actually reading the book, I unhesitatingly recant my endorsement. This was the most excruciating nonsense I’ve read in a long time. And here’s the thing, as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/03/fever-pitch-by-nick-hornby/
May 12 2026
As a third culture kid myself, this book means a lot to me, as it beautifully captures and explains the experience of belonging to more than just one place and culture. Told in the first person, this charmingly illustrated children’s book is essentially the story of author Rashmi Sirdeshpande and her family. Her parents emigrated …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/12/this-is-who-i-am-by-rashmi-sirdeshpande-ruchi-mhasane/
May 07 2026
It’s so rare to find a memoirist whose art is as engaging as her prose, but Yevgenia Nayberg truly is phenomenal in both fields. You can very much tell that she’s a trained artist, even before she goes into the details of her academic beginnings in this arresting memoir of growing up in Kyiv in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/07/chernobyl-life-and-other-disasters-by-yevgenia-nayberg/
Mar 21 2026
Once Upon a Russia, which carries the subtitle “Voices from a Vanished Era,” collects slightly more than 100 short essays from Westerners who lived and worked in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s a personal project, born of a 2024 reunion with a friend and colleague that “unfolded into hours of nostalgic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/21/once-upon-a-russia-edited-by-steven-a-fisher/
Feb 17 2026
Originally begun as a letter to his sons, Craig Yorke’s deeply thoughtful autobiography is a startlingly honest look at what it was like to grow up as a Black man of whom much was expected in the 20th century. Subtitled A Black Neurosurgeon’s Story, this is a book that advertises from the start that it’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/02/17/steep-by-craig-yorke/
Dec 17 2025
Sometimes I feel like if people truly knew the reality of war (and pain and loss,) they’d be far less happy to embrace it. You’ve got all these weird macho cosplayers acting like war isn’t a big deal when they’ve never seen any action themselves. Then, ofc, you have the sociopaths happy to risk, if …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/17/true-war-stories-vol-1-edited-by-alex-de-campi-and-khai-krumbhaar/
Dec 01 2025
translated from the original Czech by Martha Kuhlman. Part of the problem with preferring to go in blind to books after I initially say yes to them (usually months and months ago) as a professional book critic is that I’m sometimes blindsided by topics that I didn’t think a book would cover to the extent …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/01/heartcore-by-stepanka-jislova/
Oct 30 2025
A good friend of mine has a slight but noticeable disability, and one of the first things he ever said to me was “Ask me about it.” That, in no small part, fueled my desire to read and review this title. Mazie is ready for her first day at a new school. She and her …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/30/maybe-just-ask-me-by-katie-mazeika/
Oct 27 2025
What I would give to have been as confident a teenager as Taylor Cassidy! As this book progresses, it becomes clear that good parenting played a huge role in raising such a well-adjusted, intellectually curious, boundlessly creative person who, in turn, wants to shine a bright, warm light for others to follow and be inspired …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/10/27/black-history-is-your-history-by-taylor-cassidy/
Sep 09 2025
So happy to celebrate five years of Street Noise’s dissident graphic novel publishing by featuring a review of this incredibly moving autobiographical tale! I’m not gonna lie, the first four parts of Jim Terry’s deeply personal graphic memoir Come Home, Indio, are tough reading. Jim, or JT as he’s often called, was born to an …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/09/come-home-indio-by-jim-terry/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire