The Aegean Reading Room
Independent full-book reviews and clearly labelled excerpt-based critical previews, with sources and reading scope disclosed.
Full reviews are based on complete books. Critical previews examine only the identified excerpts and are labelled separately, with sources and reading scope disclosed. Books from our own imprint are never presented as independent criticism.
Book review · Climate fiction · Contemporary anthology
Edited by Angie Dell and Joey Eschrich · Book first published 2019
Article published
A close reading of ASU’s distinct 2019 climate-fiction anthology: unequal protection, exhausted workers, endangered bodies and the uneasy distance between witnessing loss and changing its causes.
Read the full review →Book review · Classic Revisited · Political fable
George Orwell · Book first published 1945
Article published
Classic Revisited: a close reading of Orwell’s political fable, where stolen language, exhausted labour and manipulated memory turn collective liberation into a new hierarchy.
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Book review · Climate fiction · Contemporary anthology
Edited by Angie Dell and Joey Eschrich · Book first published 2021
Article published
A full-book review of ASU’s 2021 climate-fiction anthology: ten contrasting stories about contaminated bodies, damaged places, technological promises and the difficult work of living together.
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Book review · Contemporary fiction · Speculative anthology
Ten contributors, including Martha Wells, Karen Lord and Yoon Ha Lee · Book first published 2020
Article published
An independent review of a ten-writer speculative-fiction anthology that turns health into a question of power, belonging, climate, privacy and care.
Read the full review →Critical preview · Contemporary literature · Fiction in translation
Balsam Karam · Book first published 2021
Article published
An excerpt-based analysis of Balsam Karam’s novel, translated by Saskia Vogel: grief, precarious shelter and the distance between seeing and understanding. Not a full-book review.
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Book review · Historical fantasy · Supernatural mystery
P. Djèlí Clark · Book first published 2016
Article published
An independent close reading of P. Djèlí Clark’s 2016 supernatural mystery, weighing its inventive Cairo, perceptive investigator and ambitious clockwork finale.
Read the full review →Book review · Contemporary fiction · Social science fiction
Cory Doctorow · Book first published 2019
Article published
A critical reading of Cory Doctorow's 2019 novella, in which a locked toaster exposes the human cost of software-controlled housing and everyday life.
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Book review · Gothic fiction · Psychological horror
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu · Book first published 1872
Article published
A close, spoiler-conscious review of Le Fanu's 1872 Gothic novella, where companionship, desire and predatory power become inseparable.
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Book review · Literary classics · Psychological fiction
Edith Wharton · Book first published 1911
Article published
A close, spoiler-conscious review of Edith Wharton's tragic novella about desire, duty, poverty and the lives we cannot easily leave.
Read the full review →Have a book you would like us to consider?
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