I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing a lovely book for Necessary Fiction this week. This book comes from a small press in Ashland, Oregon called Ashland Creek Press. I’ve been quite impressed with the books on their list and I really enjoyed John Colman Wood’s novel, one of their “literary fiction” titles. Here is just a teaser from the review:

On the surface, The Names of Things is a simple novel of grief. Of one man’s negotiation of the empty spiritual and physical places created after the death of his wife. That’s a story that has been told a thousand times before. But not, I can safely say, in exactly the way that Wood tells it—building a narrative out of anthropological observations, easy travel (emphasis on easy) to a situation of extreme physical and mental isolation, and the asking of questions pertinent to the story’s 21st century setting. In short, what could be just another Grief story becomes absolutely unique, even exotic.

Read the full review here.