 Michaela Carter is a writer, painter, and award-winning poet. She is the author of the novels Further Out Than You Thought, which was an Indie Next List Pick, and Leonora In the Morning Light, about the early life of the artist Leonora Carrington. Her poetry won the Poetry Society of America Los Angeles New Poets Contest, has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She lives in Prescott, Arizona with her husband and two dogs where she cofounded the independent bookstore, Peregrine Book Company. She is frightened of mice and Spam, and some of her favorite words are manatee, mariposa, maculate, gibbous, ocean, and home. |
This book is stunning.
Un-put-downable!
One of the best books I've read this year!
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An instant feminist, surrealist classic - Nightbitch is awesome. Powerful. I was hooked from the first sentence, and as the story pulled me along with it, I was captivated, delighted, horrified, and ultimately fired up - ready to run through the night and howl at the moon. I'm with Nightbitch all the way. Ah-hhhooooooooooo!!!
Deliciously peculiar, delightfully perverse. A perfect pairing with tea and crumpets. —Michaela
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Candid, authentic, and heart-centered, Filthy Beasts made me laugh out loud and weep in public. An important book about alcoholism, coming out, and seeing oneself as part of a family system and also as an individual, who must draw boundaries and make hard choices. Hamill won me over completely.
Delightful, curious, and surprising - these poems are my absolute favorite.
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Milk Fed is sexy and wicked smart. I read it voraciously.
Smart and masterfully crafted, A Children's Bible was impossible to put down.
Emotionally complex, beautifully written, Sea Wife is taut and engaging. I loved it!
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Big in every sense, What Could Be Saved asks hard questions about personal redemption and the ways lives change when a child goes missing. Through the darkness, moments of humanity sparkle and sing. After finishing this novel, I didn't know what to start next. What else could possibly be this good?
The story of a Parisian concierge and a precocious 12 year old girl who lives in her building. Funny, smart, and heartrending.
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I can’t recall the last time when reading a work of nonfiction, I’ve woken up excited purely by the fact that, today, I would get to read more. Compulsive and psychologically riveting, Three Women reads like a novel. I couldn’t keep from dog-earing its pages, because Taddeo had perfectly expressed something I’d felt but never had the words for. In Sloane, Maggie, and Lina, I recognized aspects of myself—namely the desire for connection and for love. When three women tell their uncensored truth they can liberate a nation. I feel deeply grateful to Lisa Taddeo for giving us this gift of raw authenticity.
An innovative, magical, feminist memoir unlike any other book I know of.
This novel, Hallberg's first, is stellar. I marveled in the beauty of his sentences, fell in love with his characters, and didn't want it to end. Well worth the commitment.
Though inspired by Charles Manson and the infamous murders, Emma Cline’s The Girls’ real subject is girls — their vulnerability and anger, their hunger to be noticed and loved. Insightful, haunting, and beautifully written! —Michaela
Powerful, emotionally riveting linked short stories that spiral through the music scene. Highly recommended! —Michaela
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Wise, inquisitive, and heart-breakingly tender, Brinkley-Rogers’ memoir moves seamlessly between the man he is now and the boy he was in 1959 when he was a sailor aboard the USS Shangri-La stationed off Japan. As much about the nature of memory and love as it is about life lived and reflected upon, Please Enjoy Your Happiness weaves poetry and effortless prose into a captivating tale of the beautiful, tragic woman he met in Yokosuka... Read Michaela's complete review in the Daily Courier »
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Warning: This book may cause you to fall in love with the world again. In language both simple and beautiful, Barfield, a poet doctor, tells the remarkable story of five impoverished people (and a donkey named Jesus) living by the train tracks in Memphis who find love and grace in their everyday lives. —Michaela
This provocative, wholly original satire couldn't be more timely. When four Berkeley students travel to the south to stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment, friendships are tried and the town's darkest secrets are uncovered. Poetic, ambitious and resoundingly perceptive. —Michaela
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Beautifully illustrated, A Muse and A Maze delights as it demystifies the craft of writing, likening it to puzzles of all kinds. This has been my go-to book as I near the end of a first draft of my own book. Pick it up and flip through the pages. Turchi's brilliance enables both writers and readers to glimpse the wizard behind the curtain. —Michaela
Funny and unconventional in most every way, Zink turns our assumptions about race, sexuality and the American dream on their sides, and spins a tale of missteps and surprises toward a rather Shakespearean zenith. Mislaid is a truly entertaining read! —Michaela
Ten years in the writing, Anthony Doerr's new novel, All the Light We Cannot See, is at once intimate and generous, historical and magical, thrilling and gorgeous. It is one of those books I savored, the way I do great poetry. –Michaela
Read Michaela's complete review of the book in Kudos.
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With the rhythmic music of her language, Denfeld weaves her spell of enchantment, shining love into the darkest, most brutal of places. This novel surprises, terrifies, and enlightens, and is a spellbinding and rapturous read. –Michaela
You will never see the world the same way again. You will learn to dream with your eyes open. –Michaela
Perrotta's new book of stories measures not only the permissible distance between middle school kids in a slow dance, but that less definable space between responsibility and desire, who we think we are and who we dream of being-- if we dared. Perrota's stories are among the best I've read. Ever. (Apologies to Carver fans.) –Michaela
(This book cannot be returned)
Part travelogue, part criticism, and part memoir, The Trip to Echo Spring examines the lives of Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, and John Berryman, all of them brilliant and all of them troubled and alcoholic. Shimmering with insights and details, it leaves the reader enriched, educated, and inspired by the words of these great writers as seen through Laing’s insightful lens. –Michaela
While Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Gluck, whose father invented the X-acto knife, has favored a lean line throughout the fifty years of her published verse, she has reinvented her voice with each subsequent book, making this collection one of astounding breadth and depth. Drawing from myth and family, from nature and sex and her own body, she addresses her reader directly, with courage and simplicity. To read Gluck's poetry is to face one woman's truth unmasked, in all its fierceness and beauty. –Michaela
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In her sharply imagined, comedic novel. Somers tackles the #MeToo issue. Refusing any facile judgments, Stay Up With Hugo Best explores the complexities of people & relationships, & the many shades of gray that make us all human. Fantastic!
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Locascio's unflinching frankness about female desire is vital for our time. A truly gorgeous book.
This made me LOL-- a lot. And I've been an adult (supposedly) for awhile!
Italy, Hollywood, and a life-long love-- what more could you want in a novel?
Strange bedtime stories by a master of surrealism.
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In prose as raw, honest, and poetic as Jones' indelible lyrics, this memoir tells the stories behind the songs. Last Chance Texaco is gorgeous and resonant and wholly unique.
This short story collection is really more like a novel. The stories and characters connect in fascinating, resonant ways. A small but mighty read!
I could not put this down! If you want an addictive read---for the beach or a plane or a long summer day---this is it!
This companion book to the Academy Award winning documentary Period. End of Sentence. is a beacon of the No Shame Period movement, empowering women across the globe.
Masterful and hilarious, this is one of my favorites!!
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Generous, honest, funny and heartbreakingly true, this memoir by playwright Sarah Ruhl is probably the best book I read last year.
Herring's speculative, poetic memoir is fearless, moving, profound and so full of love it overflows.
THIS novel! WOW! I fell in love with all its story lines and characters, and now that it's over, I miss them. It's more than 600 pages, but I read it in four days. A deeply-moving, beautiful, miracle of a novel.
