You are an expert at characterising how a specific human writes online book reviews.

You will be shown 8 examples of reviews written by ONE user, each preceded by the book's metadata. Your job is to write a rubric that captures this user's distinctive style, voice, content focus, and writing patterns -- so that a separate evaluator can use the rubric to judge whether a new candidate review looks like something this user would actually write.

The user's persona:
<|The Start of Persona|>
Demographics: Missing
Interests:
  Paranormal romance featuring vampires and werewolves ('I'm a vampire/werewolf junkie')
  Erotic and steamy romance novels with explicit sexual content ('Not for the faint of heart. Make sure you have someone close by when you get finished reading this book')
  Historical romance set in Regency England and medieval periods (reviews of Kleypas, Balogh, Hunter)
  Romance series and connected books (Cynster, Bedwyn, GhostWalker, Undead series)
  Alpha male heroes ('If you like Alpha male heros this one is for you', 'I loved the hero')
  Authors like Lisa Kleypas, Angela Knight, Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Jaid Black
  Well-developed, non-annoying female protagonists (criticizes 'shrill, annoying heroine' and 'whining' characters)
  Books with strong villains and mystery elements ('the villian is really bad', 'the villian could be stronger')
  Romance anthologies and novellas by favorite authors
  Contemporary romance when done well, though prefers historicals ('maybe she should stay away from contemporary novels')
  Traditional romance without paranormal elements when well-executed ('This is not a book filled with sex, zany characters, or anything paranormal')
  Books with satisfying, well-paced endings rather than rushed conclusions
Values:
  Prioritizes strong character development over plot ('Her characters scream at you from the page', 'The Characters and story could have been so much better')
  Dislikes annoying, whining, or overly passive female protagonists ('The heroine was very annoying', 'shrill, annoying heroine')
  Values consistency in series quality and criticizes authors who decline ('Laurens is running out of steam', 'The first book was wonderful the rest were a waste of trees')
  Appreciates emotional intensity and realism in romance ('This is intense and real. You will care about these two')
  Prefers longer books with adequate development ('Much too short', 'I wish this book was longer', 'the ending was a little less rushed')
  Expects strong, credible villains in suspense plots ('the villian could be stronger', 'weak villian')
  Values explicit sexual content and chemistry between protagonists ('steamy sex scenes', 'Hot, Hot, Hot', 'sexy and hot')
  Appreciates well-written dialogue and character interactions ('the dialogue sparkles')
  Dislikes beta males and prefers dominant alpha heroes ('add a beta male who is too nice')
  Values books as keepers worth rereading versus disposable reads ('this is definately not a keeper', 'I gave this away without a whimper')
  Expects satisfying resolutions and dislikes obvious or rushed endings ('add an obvious ending', 'wrapped up a little too quickly')
  Appreciates when authors take risks but execute them well
Communication:
  Uses emphatic repetition for emphasis ('Hot, Hot, Hot' appears in multiple reviews)
  Provides direct, actionable recommendations ('You must buy this book', 'I think you should add this to your cart', 'Don't get me wrong')
  Employs comparative language across books and series ('Much Better than first book', 'Much too short', 'Almost perfect')
  Gives selective reading advice within anthologies ('Skip the Hamilton offering', 'Skip over Maggie Shayne and Freehan's stories')
  Uses casual, conversational tone with contractions and informal language ('Wow', 'Boy does she have a future!')
  References physical interactions with books ('throwing the book against the wall', 'I gave this away without a whimper')
  Creates evaluative review titles that summarize opinion ('Running out of steam', 'Finally got it right', 'What happened?')
  Balances criticism with praise ('This book was wonderful, the only real problem is...')
  Uses exclamation points frequently to convey enthusiasm or frustration
  Writes concise reviews focused on key strengths and weaknesses
  Employs rhetorical questions for emphasis ('what was she thinking?')
  Provides specific author and character name references to demonstrate familiarity with genre
Statistics:
  Average review length: approximately 45-55 words
  Review length range: minimum 25 words, maximum 85 words
  Most frequent words: 'book', 'hot', 'much', 'better', 'annoying', 'wonderful', 'short', 'ending'
  Most frequent phrases: 'too short', 'much better', 'the ending', 'the heroine', 'this book'
  Uses exclamation points in 14 of 17 reviews for emphasis
  Employs comparative structures frequently ('better than', 'worse than', 'not nearly as')
  Sentence structure varies between short declarative statements (5-8 words) and compound sentences (15-25 words)
  Typically includes 3-5 sentences per review with clear topic progression
  Uses colons and dashes for elaboration and emphasis
  Review titles average 2-4 words and are consistently evaluative
<|The End of Persona|>

The user's past reviews:
--- Example 1 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->United States
- Title: Touched by Darkness (Sentinel, Book 1)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – January 2, 2007
- Price: 5.98
- Author: Catherine Spangler
- Description:
- Features: Fleeing the powerful reach of a supernatural underworld, Dr. Kara Cantrell seeks refuge with her child in the tiny town of Zorro, Texas, but when dark forces threaten her new life, she is forced to turn to Damien Morgan, a seductive man with superhuman abilities with whom she shares a mystical link. Original.

Review by this user:
Not as good as they say: I've read her other books and was pleasantly surprised by those. I'm disappointed by this book. I felt she didn't spend enoough time creating the world. She didn't spend enough time creating the characters motivations. It felt rushed to cash in on the current paranormal craze. The only good news was at least there weren't any whiny vampires.

--- Example 2 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Science Fiction & Fantasy->Fantasy
- Title: Master of Dragons (Mageverse, Book 8)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – June 5, 2007
- Price: 9.99
- Author: Angela Knight
- Description: Review "If you like alpha heroes, wild rides, and pages that sizzle in your hand, you're going to love her, too!" -- J.R. Ward"The future belongs to Knight!" -- Emma HollyThe Series that leaves "Readers Always Begging for More." About the Author Angela Knight is the USA Today bestselling author of the Mageverse series and the Warlord series for Berkley Books. She has also written for Red Sage, Changeling Press, Loose Id and Ellora's Cave. Besides her novels, Angela’s publishing career includes a stint as a ...[truncated]
- Features: The last time fairy princess Nineva Morrow engaged in magic, evil forces rendered her an orphan-isolated and incapable of trusting in anyone's survival. But after years of hiding on Earth, she'll use her powers once more-and attract more knights than she can handle

Review by this user:
A great read: Loved the book. Stunned by the ending. Don't miss this one.

--- Example 3 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->United States
- Title: Wild Thing
- Subtitle: Paperback – Bargain Price, May 1, 2007
- Price: None
- Author: Marjorie M. Liu
- Description: About the Author Maggie Shayne is a national bestselling author who has appeared on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. When she's not writing, she spends her time exploring the mysteries of the cosmos, reading Tarot, collecting crystals, and studying the customs and rituals of long-forgotten civilizations. She lives in upstate New York.Marjorie M. Liu is an attorney who has lived and worked throughout Asia. She hails from both coasts, but currently resides in the Midwest, where she writes full- ...[truncated]
- Features: New York Times bestselling authors Maggie Shayne and Marjorie Liu join two hot talents in an anthology of all-new sexy paranormal romance. New York Times bestselling authors Maggie Shayne and Marjorie M. Liu, and sizzling newcomers Alyssa Day and Meljean Brook discover the wild instinct in everyone with four all-new stories of feral heat. Fans will get swept away by the passions in the unfathomable depths of Atlantis; they'll follow the shadows that stalk both the living and the undead in a world of vampire ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Way to weird: The first and last story were actually interesting. The rest were just a little too weird. Borrow this one

--- Example 4 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Science Fiction & Fantasy->Fantasy
- Title: Visions of Heat (Psy-Changelings, Book 2)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – March 6, 2007
- Price: 7.99
- Author: Nalini Singh
- Description: Review "A Must Read for all of My Fans." -- Christine Feehan About the Author New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing. She also loves chatting to readers. You can find her on Twitter (@nalinisingh) and Facebook (facebook.com/authornalinisingh), and via her website: nalinisingh.com Nalini's Newsletter : Goes out monthly and includes exclusives for subscribers, including free short stories, sneak peeks, deleted scen ...[truncated]
- Features: A Psy/Changeling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Shards of Hope, Shield of Winter, and Heart of Obsidian..."the alpha author of paranormal romance" (Booklist). Used to cold silence, Faith NightStar is suddenly being tormented by dark visions of blood and murder. A bad sign for anyone, but worse for Faith, an F-Psy with the highly sought after ability to predict the future. Then the visions show her something even more dangerous—aching need…exquisite pleasure. But so powerful is her sight ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
I loved it: I would have given it a higher grade except I kept getting confused with all of the foreshadowing of the next books. I also didn't read the first book in the series. But, this was a good solid read, strong characters, great alpha male hero and great development of the heroine. Don't miss this one.

--- Example 5 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->United States
- Title: New Moon (The Moon Series, Book 6)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – March 6, 2007
- Price: 20.0
- Author: Rebecca York
- Description: From Booklist Logan Marshall is out for a run in his werewolf form when he is caught in a vicious trap that saps not only his strength but also his intellect and consciousness. He is saved by a female werewolf who cajoles him into changing form and frees him from the mysterious trap, which had actually been laid to trap her. Female werewolves don't exist in Logan's world (a world that could be our own), but Rinna is from a parallel universe. That world descended into feudalism and came to be ruled by the cr ...[truncated]
- Features: When werewolf Logan Marshall is rescued by an extraordinary creature, a beautiful shapeshifter from another dimension, he becomes ensnared in her seductive trap as he helps her save herself--and Earth--from the wrath of her greatest enemy. Original.

Review by this user:
Who rates these books so high?: Sometimes I wonder who is writing the glowing reviews. I've read her other books, no I didn't write a review for them. The series ran out of steam two books ago.Give it up. I couldn't even finish this one. I skipped through trying to find something to enjoy in this book, it was impossible. I even skipped to the end and was even more disappointed. Borrow this one if you must read it.

--- Example 6 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->United States
- Title: Caressed By Ice (Psy-Changelings, Book 3)
- Subtitle: None
- Price: None
- Author: Nalini Singh
- Description: Review Praise for Slave to Sensation: "Awesome!"Third in the PSY trilogy from "a major new talent." About the Author New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing. She also loves chatting to readers. You can find her on Twitter (@nalinisingh) and Facebook (facebook.com/authornalinisingh), and via her website: nalinisingh.com Nalini's Newsletter : Goes out monthly and includes exclusives for subscribers, including free s ...[truncated]
- Features: The author of Shards of Hope and Shield of Winter presents a Psy/Changeling novel in which two people who know evil intimately must unlock the good within their icy hearts… As an Arrow, an elite soldier in the Psy Council ranks, Judd Lauren was forced to do terrible things in the name of his people. Now a defector, his dark abilities have made him the most deadly of assassins—cold, pitiless, unfeeling. Until he meets Brenna… Brenna Shane Kincaid was an innocent before she was abducted—and had her mind viola ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Almost as good as the other 2: Another damaged heroine. It seems like this is becoming a pattern. I actually liked the book, but felt it went on a little long. I can't wait for the next one.

--- Example 7 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Science Fiction & Fantasy->Science Fiction
- Title: Warrior: The Time Hunters
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – July 1, 2008
- Price: 3.34
- Author: Angela Knight
- Description: Review "A rising star in the paranormal pantheon.""If you like...pages that sizzle in your hand, you're going to love Angela Knight!" -- J.R. Ward About the Author Angela Knight is the USA Today bestselling author of the Mageverse series and the Warlord series for Berkley Books. She has also written for Red Sage, Changeling Press, Loose Id and Ellora's Cave. Besides her novels, Angela’s publishing career includes a stint as a comic book writer and ten years as a newspaper reporter. Several of her stories wo ...[truncated]
- Features: The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR launches the new Time Hunters series. In the 24th century, anyone can leap through time at will. To police the time jumpers, the Temporal Enforcement Agency has established a precinct in time. Galar Arvid is a genetically altered warlord and agent who’s been sent back to 2008 to save a pretty Atlanta artist from a Xeran time traveler who intends to kill her for profit. What Galar doesn’t count on is the powerful desire Jessica Kelly ignites in him. But could a romance b ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Pretty good - but not ready for another series: I actually liked this book. It was well done with plenty of action, suspense and sex. My only real problem is that I'm tired of sequels. Don't miss this one.

--- Example 8 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Mystery, Thriller & Suspense->Thrillers & Suspense
- Title: Hostage to Pleasure (Psy-Changelings, Book 5)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – September 2, 2008
- Price: 7.99
- Author: Nalini Singh
- Description: Review Praise for Nalini Singh and her Psy-Changeling Novels “The alpha author of paranormal romance.”— Booklist “Nalini Singh is a master storyteller.”—Maya Banks, #1 New York Times & USA Today bestselling author “Nalini is brilliant.”— USA Today “Complex psychological changes are balanced by deep love...Outstanding.”— Publishers Weekly About the Author New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing. She also loves chat ...[truncated]
- Features: A rebel Psy scientist finds herself at the mercy of a changeling who has sworn vengeance against her kind in this thrilling romance in Nalini Singh’s New York Times bestselling series. Separated from her son and forced to create a neural implant that will mean the effective enslavement of her psychically gifted race, Ashaya Aleine is the perfect Psy—cool, calm, emotionless...at least on the surface. Inside, she’s fighting a desperate battle to save her son and escape the vicious cold of the PsyNet. Yet when ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Loved Dorian: Another great entry into the series. I loved the relationship between Keenan and Noor. Don't miss this one - you'll like the strength both characters show and the support from their changeling family.

The specific book this user is about to review:
<|The Start of Book|>
**User Amazon store: Stephanie Laurens (Author)**: - Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Genre Fiction
- Title: Mastered By Love (Bastion Club, 8)
- Subtitle: Mass Market Paperback – Illustrated, July 28, 2009
- Price: 8.99
- Author: Stephanie Laurens
  #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens began writing romances as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly became a career when her first novel was accepted for publication, and with entirely becoming alacrity, she gave up writing about facts in favor of writing fiction. Laurens's novels are set in the time period of the British Regency, and her settings range from Scotland to India. Laurens has published fifty works of historical romance, including 29 New York Times bestsellers. All her works are continuously available in print and digital formats in English worldwide, and have been translated into many other languages. An international bestseller, among other accolades Laurens has received the Romance Writers of America prestigious RITA Award for Best Romance Novella 2008, for The Fall of Rogue Gerrard. Her continuing novels featuring the Cynster family are widely regarded as classics of the genre. Other series include the Bastion Club Novels and the Black Cobra Quartet. Following is a brief autobiography of Stephanie's life before becoming a romance novelist: My early life was not all that ordinary - I was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) many years ago, at a time when the recently independent British colony still behaved socially very much like an outpost of the British Raj. So I know what "tiffin" is. It was a strange society - one that has now died - but I still remember snippets. At age 5, my family upped stakes and moved permanently to Melbourne, Australia, where they've remained ever since. I did all my schooling in Melbourne, finished university with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, then moved on, together with my husband, acquired along the way, to London. Of course, we didn't just hop on a plane and fly. No. We took what proved to be one of the last true overland journeys from Katmandu to London - through northern India and the Ganges valley, up into Kashmir to laze on houseboats on the lake at Srinigar, then through Pakistan and on up the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan (pre-destruction). From Kabul, we continued west, across Iran (then still with the Shah), down to Isfahan, then up to the Caspian Sea, then all the way across Turkey to the ages-old fascination of Istanbul. I still have the most vivid memories of Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey - the most wonderfully dramatic and lonely scenery - places where Nature really impinged on your consciousness. After wandering across Europe, we eventually reached London, after what will undoubtedly rank as the journey of our lives. In London, I took up a position as a research scientist - and my husband did, too. We lived in a lovely little cottage - a 16th century woodcutter's cottage, complete with 16th century tiles (you can tell by the wooden pegs that hold them on), built onto an oast house (those places with conical roofs where they used to dry hops), surrounded on all sides by the lush green fields of rural Kent. Of course, next door was the protected remains of a 1st century Roman villa, and down the lane was a 14th century castle, still owned by the original family. The main house was now mostly Queen Anne in style, but with some Tudor buildings still remaining. We spent 4 wonderful years living in England, touring England, France, Spain, Portugal and northern Italy, entirely off the beaten track. Provincial France became a favorite haunt; Portugal was a different sort of paradise. On our return to Australia, we both continued on with scientific research - in my case, in the cancer research field. I remained in cancer research, rising through the ranks to heading my own laboratory...until fate took a hand. I had read romances since I was 13 - when my mother borrowed Georgette Heyer's romances from a workmate, and I read them after her. These Old Shades was the first one I read - I was hooked for life. In England, I'd had the opportunity to stock up with Regency romances that were never available in the US or Australia - I still have shelves of them. After our return to Australia, one day I literally ran out of books to read. I wanted a new Regency romance - but there were none in the stores. In desperation, I decided to write one - something I'd always had a hankering to do, but never done. So I did. I just sat down and wrote the story, writing at night and on weekends, primarily to entertain myself. To my surprise, being one of those people who always have craft projects lying around unfinished for years, I actually finished the book - mainly, I suspect, because I wanted to know the end. But there it was - and it didn't seem too bad. Perhaps.... That first manuscript became TANGLED REINS, my first romance - a British Regency romance published by Mills & Boon. Subsequently, I wrote 7 more Regency romances for Mills & Boon. Somewhere along the line, I faced the fact that the life of a research scientist, certainly at the level I had now reached, had palled. Stress levels were too high. But I now had something else I could do - I could write romances. So I "retired" from scientific life, to more relaxed and fulfilling endeavors, and at much the same time, crossed the Atlantic publishing-wise, and, after some uncertain times, eventually signed on with Avon. The rest, as they say, is history! For information on upcoming releases and updates on novels yet to come, visit Stephanie's website at www.stephanielaurens.com or connect with her on Facebook www.facebook.com/AuthorStephanieLaurens If you'd like to get regular information about upcoming releases or giveaways, sign up for her newsletter at http://www.stephanielaurens.com/newsletter-signup/
- Description: Review “Erotically specific yet emotionally touching and infinitely romantic, this electrically charged, danger-tinged romance deliciously concludes Laurens’s Bastion Club series.” — Library Journal About the Author #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science, a hobby that quickly became a career. Her novels set in Regency England have captivated readers around the globe, making her one of the romance world's most beloved and popular authors.
- Features:
The men of the Bastion Club proved their bravery secretly fighting for their country. Now their leader faces that most dangerous mission of all: finding a bride. As the mysterious leader of the Bastion Club known as "Dalziel," Royce Varisey, tenth Duke of Wolverstone, served his country for decades, facing dangers untold. But as the holder of one of England's most august noble titles, he must now take on that gravest duty of all: marriage. Yet the young ladies the grand dames would have him consider are predictably boring. Far more tempting is his castle's willful and determinedly aloof chatelaine, Minerva Chesterton. Beneath her serene façade lies a woman of smoldering sensuality, one who will fill his days with comfort and his nights with sheer pleasure. Determined to claim her, he embarks on a seduction to prove his mastery over every inch of her body . . . and every piece of her heart.
- Details:
  Publisher: Avon; Illustrated edition (July 28, 2009)
  Language: English
  Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
  ISBN 10: 0061246379
  ISBN 13: 978-0061246371
  Item Weight: 8.5 ounces
  Dimensions: 4.19 x 0.96 x 6.75 inches
<|The End of Book|>

First, PREDICT the substantive review THIS user would most likely write about THIS book, using their persona + past reviews + this book's context. Then turn that prediction into a rubric.

Write 8-12 numbered criteria that a judge will use to check whether a CANDIDATE review COVERS THE KEY POINTS this user would actually make about THIS book. Ground every criterion in the user's likely CONTENT, not surface style:
- Their likely OVERALL STANCE / verdict on this book (would they like or dislike it, and why), inferred from their taste and this book's genre/premise/themes.
- The SPECIFIC aspects they would most likely comment on here -- name concrete elements from THIS book (particular plot points, characters, themes, pacing, craft, comparisons) that a reader like this user reacts to.
- Their characteristic OPINIONS / reactions (what they would praise or criticize here) and the direction/strength of sentiment.
- Any content they habitually include (recommendation, audience, warnings, comparisons).

Write the criteria to match HOW the candidate will be graded (coverage of the user's real review minus a penalty for extra content):
- Each criterion should reward COVERING a specific likely key point, checkable in a short review.
- Make them DISCRIMINATING: a candidate that writes a generic or merely on-topic review WITHOUT the user's specific likely take must score LOW; only a candidate that hits the user's actual likely points and stance scores HIGH.
- Include at least one criterion that PENALIZES speculative, hedging, off-target, or padded content not central to what this user would say.
- Do NOT reward surface formatting.

Output ONLY the rubric:
<rubric>
1. <criterion>
...
</rubric>


You are an expert at characterising how a specific human writes online book reviews.

You will be shown 8 examples of reviews written by ONE user, each preceded by the book's metadata. Your job is to write a rubric that captures this user's distinctive style, voice, content focus, and writing patterns -- so that a separate evaluator can use the rubric to judge whether a new candidate review looks like something this user would actually write.

The user's persona:
<|The Start of Persona|>
Demographics: Missing
Interests:
  Unable to determine interests
Values:
  Unable to determine values
Communication:
  Unable to determine communication style
Statistics:
  Unable to determine statistics
<|The End of Persona|>

The user's past reviews:
--- Example 1 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Poetry
- Title: Attributed to the Harrow Painter (Kuhl House Poets)
- Subtitle: Paperback – November 1, 2017
- Price: 18.0
- Description: Review "Meandering around the edges of the beginning of someone's mid-life, Attributed to the Harrow Painter dips back to lost teenage friends, traumas, accommodations, pleasures and losses and forward as the father of a young child, to the inevitable future. There's the New York diaspora, and there are the blue jays?and backyards of skull-fuck cold Kansas. Where are you most alive? Like Dana Ward and Ariana Reines, Nick Twemlow writes brainy poetry that's as dispersed as real life without losing heart. I f ...[truncated]
- Features: Attributed to the Harrow Painter reckons with fatherhood, the violence of nostalgia, poetry, and the commodity world of visual art as the poems here frantically cycle through responses to the speaker’s son’s remark on a painting by Julian Schnabel that it “looks like garbage.” What does it mean to be a minor artist, the poems wonder, like the Greek pot painter named in the book’s title, who is described by one critic as “indeed a minor talent, not withstanding the undeniable charm of some of his works”? Wha ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
C seems much like mine Ms: Attributed to the Harrow Painter by Nick Twemlow is one of the Kuhl House poets' publications from University of Iowa Press. The Kuhl House series is dedicated to contemporary poets who write outside the usual traditions. Twemlow’s work includes Palm Trees, and his poems have appeared in Court Green, jubilat, Lana Turner, and the Paris Review. He co-edits Canarium Books and is a senior editor at the Iowa Review. He teaches at Coe College and lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

The collection starts with a poem the poet taking his son to a museum and asking the child's opinion of Schnabel’s The Death of Fashion to which the child gives a very expected opinion. The Harrow Painter, likewise a painter but in ancient Greece, is described as minor, but with some charm. That is the life of most. We travel a fairly linear path with some peaks and valleys. Twemlow travels back in his mind and poetry to the high and lower points of life. In particular, his English teacher Mr. C seems much like mine Ms. H in brutality. There are good times with friends and of course experimentation with drugs in his younger days. The poet is holding the future in his hands (his son) and looking at how he arrived at the present, but with an eye still, too, on the future for his son.

Although this collection isn't traditional in form, it is much closer than works like Eric Linsker's La Far. The lines are short but the poems are long. There is a stream of consciousness flow in the poems but it is very structured. Alliteration and a strong rhythm are felt throughout all the lines. The reader can easily get caught up in the rhythm of the writing. A very good collection of experimental poetry that is not too far from traditional poetry or even lyrics.

--- Example 2 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Poetry
- Title: High Ground Coward (Iowa Poetry Prize)
- Subtitle: Paperback – April 15, 2018
- Price: 19.95
- Description: Review “Alicia Mountain looks at every tiny thing very closely, and in doing that conveys the big picture of a vast inner life with marvelous clarity and depth. Her voice is intimate, brash, always precise, heartbreaking in both its vulnerability and its authority. These poems are carried away by both lust and intelligence. This poet understands desire: its expression lets loose while giving form. This book doesn’t detour, it goes right to and through the overpowered, relentless heart of its speaker and the ...[truncated]
- Features: Alicia Mountain’s urgent and astonishing debut collection maps a new queer landscape through terrain alive and sensual, defiant and inviting. With a voice that beckons while it howls, Mountain nimbly traverses lyric, confessional, and narrative modes, leaving groundbreaking tracks for us to follow. High Ground Coward offers fists full of soil, leftovers for breakfast, road trip as ritual, twins of lovers and twins of ourselves. This world blooms with hunger-inducing detail, its speakers asking us to conside ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
There is a stream of consciousness in the work that seems organic and organized like a messy desk: High Ground Coward by Alicia Mountain is the Iowa Poetry Prize winner for 2017. Mountain is a poet and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Denver. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Witness, Zone 3, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Mountain's work was nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. She won an Academy of American Poets College Prize in 2014 and was a 2015 Idyllwild Fellow. She received her MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula.

This collection presents aspects from the poet's life. The landscape of Montana comes to stimulating life, especially in the winter. Spring comes but it is in conjunction with a relationship. There is a stream of consciousness in the work that seems organic and organized like a messy desk. It is all there and you know where everything is located but it is not in clearly labeled folders. The urgency of he voice adds to the natural flow of information. At times it seems a bit chaotic but never out of control. There still is a fuzziness that comes with words:

My father had no sons.
My mother sends my wife her love.
In all of this, forgiveness

assumes sin and I’m not sorry.

~ The Book is a Hungry Darkness

Much is implied but without the detail that a second person would assign to the same information. Like modernist's stream of consciousness put the reader inside a narrative brain, Mountain removes much of the narrative and puts the reader inside her mind without a guide. The careful reader will not be lost. "Little Rectangular Earths" and "Elysian / Echo" let the reader into a mind with naked thoughts.

There is a mix of memories road trips, childhood, trains, jobs, friends, and lovers in the work take on an almost dream-like quality. The imagery is constant and vivid as in "Closing Costs" although at times fragmented as memories or images of memories often are.

This collection of poems for slow enjoyment; take your time. Images need to build and collect. Although this collection may not be for everyone, it does offer intensity that is absent from much of modern poetry.

--- Example 3 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Poetry
- Title: The Fix (Iowa Poetry Prize)
- Subtitle: Paperback – April 15, 2018
- Price: 19.95
- Author: Lisa Wells
- Description: Review “Full and luscious as a grape before wine-making or a moon before love-making, the poems in The Fix live in a roadside space that’s earthy, sensual, erotic, and wild. Lisa Wells writes by feel, shaping, kneading, and bending the line the way a potter builds a ceramic vessel from the bottom up, coiling around a central idea until it’s solid, visible, and ready to be marveled at.”—D. A. Powell “ The Fix is ruthless, sleepless, vigilant, obsessive: a profound work of mystery and matter, of power and ple ...[truncated]
- Features: Proceeding from Hélène Cixous’s charge to “kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing,” The Fix forges that woman’s reckoning with her violent past, with her sexuality, and with a future unmoored from the trappings of domestic life. These poems of lyric beauty and unflinching candor negotiate the terrain of contradictory desire—often to darkly comedic effect. In encounters with strangers in dive bars and on highway shoulders, and through ekphrastic engagement with visionaries like Wi ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Complex yet beautifully written collection of poetry certainly able to hold the ...: An incredible selection of poetry that almost defies description.  Vivid in both descriptions and distractions the poet takes the reader on a wild ride from the shoulder of the road to the backroom of a club.  Animalistic and sometimes violent the journey continues unabated.

Sometimes the words turn simple:

A seed sleeps till you put it in the ground.
A seed is a box water opens

~ Resurrections  II

Other times the words tend to run deep and the meanings blur.  The is captured particularly well in ”State of a Fair” blending meanings and playing both on words and events to create a double vision branching in different directions.

Complex yet beautifully written collection of poetry certainly able to hold the attention and admiration of the reader. A well-done collection deserving of the Iowa Poetry Prize.

--- Example 4 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->History & Criticism
- Title: Paracritical Hinge: Essay, Talks, Notes, Interviews (Contemp North American Poetry)
- Subtitle: Paperback – March 15, 2018
- Price: 45.0
- Description: Review “Mackey’s new volume is more even than the ‘paracriticism’ of its title; it is a hinge linking practices, linking a poetic critique with a metamusical aesthetic. Fiction and criticism conjoin in the passages drawing from Mackey’s serial fiction even as the interviews proffer a poetics.”—Aldon Nielsen, Penn State University “Mackey’s voice emanates from the perspective available to a contemporary African American, jazz influenced, on-the-postmodern-cusp intellectual poet. His voice is well defined: he ...[truncated]
- Features: Paracritical Hinge is a collection of varied yet interrelated pieces highlighting Nathaniel Mackey’s multifaceted work as writer and critic. It embraces topics ranging from Walt Whitman’s interest in phrenology to the marginalization of African American experimental writing; from Kamau Brathwaite’s “calibanistic” language practices to Federico García Lorca’s flamenco aesthetic of duende and its continuing repercussions; from H. D.’s desert measure and coastal way of knowing to the altered spatial dispositio ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
He also discusses writers and arts in his work like Amiri Baraka and John Coltrane: Paracritical Hinge: Essay, Talks, Notes, Interviews by Nathaniel Mackey Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic, and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a poetry workshop at Duke University. He has been editor and publisher of Hambone since 1982 and he won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2006. In 2014, he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and in 2015 he won Yale's Bollingen Prize for American Poetry.

Paracritical Hinge refers to the pivotal point of the combination of poetry, fiction, and art. Mackey examines several subjects including an interesting examination of phenology, the poetry of the Vietnam War, and jazz. He also discusses writers and arts in his work like Amiri Baraka and John Coltrane.

This is clearly a work for those familiar with Mackey and his work. The reading is not easy especially for one whose field of study and interest are not strongly connected to Mackey's. The writing in the body of the work is complex with plenty of names and themes that are understood to be known. I had to skip through the introduction because it was over my head. I found it a little odd that I could follow along in sections where I had an understanding of the subject matter but was lost in the introduction that was supposed to introduce the subject and ease me into it. A difficult but rewarding work that clearly is not for everyone.

--- Example 5 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->History & Criticism
- Title: Technomodern Poetics: The American Literary Avant-Garde at the Start of the Information Age (New American Canon)
- Subtitle: Paperback – October 1, 2018
- Price: 75.0
- Description: Review “Todd Tietchen’s powerfully transformative account of the post–World War II avant-garde lets us understand and appreciate the technological imagination of some of the period’s most provocative writers and artists. By reading the Beats and other figures for their surprisingly canny engagements with a culture of information—across material practices, historical contexts, and aesthetic innovations—Tietchen reminds us that we still have a lot to learn about how Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, ...[truncated]
- Features: After the second World War, the term “technology” came to signify both the anxieties of possible annihilation in a rapidly changing world and the exhilaration of accelerating cultural change. Technomodern Poetics examines how some of the most well-known writers of the era described the tensions between technical, literary, and media cultures at the dawn of the Digital Age. Poets and writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, Jack Kerouac, and Frank O’Hara, among others, anthologized in Donald Allen’s ic ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
"There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal.": The digital humanities risk becoming just an extension of the corporate-driven technocracy endemic to neoliberalism.
~ Alan Liu

Technomodern Poetics: The American Literary Avant-Garde at the Start of the Information Age by Todd T Tietchen is the examination of the change of American poetry in the post-WWII period. Tietchen is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is the author of The Cubalogues: Beat Writers in Revolutionary Havana. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington.

I find poetics to be a difficult subject but love poetry. Poetry is like watching the night sky and taking it all in. One does not need to understand astrophysics to enjoy the night sky. Poetics is the astrophysics of poetry. It is the reason and the why of poetry. It is why poetry is written in the form that it is in. My experience with poetics has not been very successful. I decided to give it a try again with a period that I am familiar with in other ways.

Charles Olson's "The Kingfishers" is used to set Tietchen's thesis. It is a poem that breaks the conservative mold of American poetry. It ignores traditional rhyme, line length, and creates packets of information for the reader. He presents the failings or the collapse of Western civilization. The poem closes with:

  I pose you your question:
shall you uncover honey / where maggots are?
  I hunt among stones

Civilization has rotted away and the Olson the "archeologist of morning" uses words as tools to move things. Morning could mean the new day or more probably its homonym.

What caused the sudden change in American poetry. No doubt mechanized warfare of the WWII and the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan had a role in the shift. Also, technology also presented a different way as ENIAC was used to study artillery trajectory and used to explore the possibility of the hydrogen bomb. Technology had taken a dark turn. Throughout the book, Tietchen builds on the idea of intrusive technology and associates it with fascism. People were expected to fit into a neat mold much like traditional American poetry. Kerouac's short story "cityCityCITY" is also used as an example of the coming dystopia.

If one thinks the ideas presented may be far-fetched one just needs to look elsewhere in society at the time. Science fiction and horror movies of the 1950s tended to make a hero out of the strong individual and a villain of the collective. In Cold War politics, the Soviet Union was the machine and its people simply cogs in that machine.  America and the West were about the individual unless he or she caused waves or moved outside the lines.  The illusion or freedom or comparative freedom was the ideal.  Today cell phones can track your position anywhere there is cell service, yet people happily volunteer and pay for this potential loss of privacy.  The internet opened a world of information to the public, but everything you look at or read can be tracked.  Your library searches can also be monitored.  You are free to look, but if you look at some things, you might have to answer a few questions.

Technomodern Poetics examine the roots of dystopia through technology.  Earlier writers wrote on paper and typed out their final copies.  In the postmodernist age, the typewriter became the primary tool.  Kerouac typed directly to a scroll to create a primitive instantaneous recording of the author's thoughts. O'Hara wrote his poems on lunch walks. There was an attempt to instantly capture the ideas of the writer.  Poet's at the time moved outside of the lines. Ginsberg and Lenore Kandel would face obscenity trials for their work.  Technology could be used to create and to control.  Today writers are free to self-publish their works. Reviewers can criticize and review works but are trapped inside of lines.

What I type here are my thoughts and work and can reach an unlimited audience, but I do not have control of the information. If I stay within rules established by WordPress, if I do not violate the terms of service with my internet provider, if I do not break any laws or advocate the overthrow of the government, if I color between the established lines I am free to do what I want.  If the lines remain wide, we do not notice the cage around us. Technology, in commerce and politics, is what can close those lines.  The poets and artists of the post-war period saw this, and it scared them; today we seem to be numb to it.  One must remember the words of Michel Foucault, "There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal."

--- Example 6 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Genre Fiction
- Title: Buddhism for Western Children (Iowa Review Series in Fiction)
- Subtitle: Paperback – October 1, 2018
- Price: None
- Description: Review “ Buddhism for Western Children is insane. It’s a weird, fun, and horrifying dream. Allio’s sentences are stunning (e.g. Concerning the air: “It’s so fresh it seems carbonated.”) and the end is home to the best plot twist of 2018. I said it. Read the book and tell me I'm wrong.”— NewPages ― NewPages Published On: 2018-12-03“An enigmatic and fervent read.” ― Kirkus Reviews Review “An incisive look at what it means to be a child dragged along in the undercurrent of one’s parents’ fervor for enlightenme ...[truncated]
- Features: Set on the coast of Maine and in the high desert of New Mexico in the late 1970s through the early 80s, Buddhism for Western Children is a universal and timeless story of a boy who must escape subjugation, tell his story, and reclaim his soul.  In search of community and transcendence, ten-year-old Daniel’s family is swept into the thrall of a potent and manipulative guru. To his followers, Avadhoot Master King Ivanovich is a living god, a charismatic leader who may reveal enlightenment as he mesmerizes, an ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Buddhism for Western Children is rewarding on several levels.: Buddhism for Western Children by Kirstin Allio is a novel about ten-year-old Daniel and his family and life following a guru. Allio is the author of Clothed, Female Figure and Garner, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize for first fiction. Her honors include the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and a PEN/O. Henry Prize.

The story is told through the eyes of Daniel, a ten-year-old boy, and their family's quest into spirituality. The guru and living god is Avadhoot Master King Ivanovich a Russian who plays piano and speaks to his followers in crude poetry. The confusion about the attraction to cults is reflected in the writing. The prose is excellent, a bit surreal and sometimes confusing. It seems to signal that the difference in what is seen and heard inside the cult and what the outsider (reader) sees and hears. The guru seems to speak to a deeper level to his followers and what the reader sees seems somewhat crass.

Allio weaves together a story of the cult mindset, the perseverance of the young mind, absurdity, and beautifully written lyrical poetry.  Her writing style is enough to draw in the reader looking to escape the modern simplistic prose that defines today's society.  The style and fluidity of this book are reminiscent to Modernism and even the writing style of Virginia Woolf. Buddhism for Western Children is rewarding on several levels.

--- Example 7 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Poetry
- Title: Transaction Histories (Kuhl House Poets)
- Subtitle: Paperback – September 10, 2018
- Price: 17.36
- Description: Review “The prospect of a book filled with prose poems is admittedly better than the prospect of a book filled with thumbtacks, but not by much. So it is greatly to Stonecipher’s credit that Transaction Histories is a delight: a mordant yet romantic survey of art, love, hunger and plastic owls in which seemingly unrelated observations are meticulously knit together to form a resonant whole. The method here is generally to put a figure or phrase in play — for example, a little girl who “turned out to have ju ...[truncated]
- Features: Reveling in the paradox of the formal prose poem, Donna Stonecipher’s Transaction Histories gathers together six series of poems that explore the disobedient incongruities of aesthetics and emotions. Stonecipher’s carefully sculpted forms and exacting language are held in tension with an unruly imagination to provoke a vision of experience densely layered with bodies impinging upon and altering each other, engaging in transactions that unfold in poetically complex and emotionally startling ways. By turns wr ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
An enjoyable and thought-provoking collection of modern poetry.  : Transaction Histories by Donna Stonecipher is a series of six poems of several sections. Stonecipher is the author of three books of poems, most recently The Cosmopolitan (2008, winner of the National Poetry Series). She graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, with an MFA in 2001. She completed her Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.

Transaction Histories delivers an exciting collection of observations and bits of news. The color blue and water in all its forms are present and run through the entire collection. The sea, rivers, snow, coastlines, and an infinity pool are all represented. Water is the ban of developers as nothing can be built on it. Later we are reminded of the plastic island in the Pacific the size of Texas, and it is countered with:

The plastic owls had been manufactured to scare away other
birds, as if wisdom itself were frightening — and indeed it was.

The language is crisp and filled with images:

In the photograph there were long rows of hooded horses, their eyes like great dark
romantic marbles glistening out into the unromantic crowds.

The images reflect back and forth through the poems and form connections to the past. Views change as a gardener, artist, and a veterinarian discuss the best places to live. This is countered later by travelers who arrive in a foreign city looking to eat and find the same selection of restaurants they had at home, except with the if one found one's self at a particular restaurant in India.

Time changes values of items:

Even as we sat watching the sunset, somewhere a lamp was turning into an antique somewhere a sofa was converting from bad taste to good taste.

It also changes what people value:

A lot of people seemed to like to go to the New York Public Library, establish themselves at a desk surrounded by books, and spend all afternoon stroking their smartphones.

Stonecipher takes the reader on a journey from Persian carpets, to the (loosely translated) Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, and Snow.  Between each section is are two short poems call "Landscape" and "Portrait" which offer a view of art from the past and waste from the present.  A stark contrast between the past and present.  The past and present and people and things come together to compliment and contract each other. An enjoyable and thought-provoking collection of modern poetry.

Available September 10, 2018

--- Example 8 ---
Book:
- Category: Books->Literature & Fiction->Poetry
- Title: Form from Form (Kuhl House Poets)
- Subtitle: Paperback – September 10, 2018
- Price: 19.95
- Description: Review “Rich in imagery and complex in form, Bolin delivers an interesting adventure in words that glimpse beyond the shadows on the wall”— Evilcyclist’s Bookshelf Review “Chris Bolin has an expert sense of the line and a very keen feel for the poetic image, constructing poems that move with a calm and stately radiance. In its austere tableaux and impersonal but poetically authoritative language, Bolin’s work brings to mind Saint-John Perse’s Anabasis , creating an overall and haunting impression of mankind ...[truncated]
- Features: “Was it a crater or a sinkhole?” asks a voice in one of the mysterious, wonderstruck poems in Christopher Bolin’s Form from Form, whose cadences modulate with the energies of form-making, deformation, and elusive reformation. Natural forms and forms of human manufacture, forms of absence and those of urgent desire construct and deconstruct each other in Bolin’s singular music, which blends unnerving plainness and obliqueness, the childlike and the alien. As their sites drift from workers’ camps to city squa ...[truncated]

Review by this user:
Rich in imagery and complex in form: Form from Form by Christopher Bolin is the poet's second collection of poetry. Bolin teaches writing at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. He is also the author of Ascension Theory.

Kuhl House Poets releases collections in fall and it is described by the University of Iowa Press as:

This provocative series reawakens readers to a fresh consideration of the possibilities of language and feeling by publishing work that is formally and verbally inventive, adventurous work that takes its own path outside established routes of either traditions or experimental poetry.

Form From Form perfectly fits this description. The Kuhl House releases are usually more difficult poetry and usually supply several moments of revelation. Form From Form made me think from first seeing the title. It is usually form that follows function. Reading through I began to think that if form derives from form might this not be like Plato allegory?  The poet is describing form while viewing the ideal in an attempt to relay perfection in our imperfect words. Bolin's work certainly did provide several instances when he perfectly captured a moment.

The work is rich with imagery:
The viewers in the triptych shadows breaking into sequences
of expressions—

into tableaus

of arriving
a thousand years too late to save them from themselves

~Crowd Control

"Manuscript" plays heavily on the ovine. From the vellum, to the recording of the word of The Lamb, to the "smoothing the tufted pages of the beast" the path is clearly marked and followed. The poet moves from fishermen to factories and might even touch upon the uncertainty principle.  Rich in imagery and complex in form Bolin delivers an interesting adventure in words that glimpse beyond the shadows on the wall.

The specific book this user is about to review:
<|The Start of Book|>
**User Amazon store: James Miller (Author)**: - Category: Books->Politics & Social Sciences->Politics & Government
- Title: Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World
- Subtitle: None
- Price: None
- Author: James Miller
  Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
- Description: Review "What makes the book compelling is its focus on colorful thinkers, activists, and political leaders who lived and breathed the democratic moment throughout history, from Pericles and Socrates in ancient Athens to Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin in the early twentieth century. Miller shows that democracy’s ascent is best seen not as a gradual unfolding of a political principle driven by reason and moral destiny but rather as a grand roller coaster ride of struggle, revolution, and backlash. Today’s populist outbursts look quite ordinary alongside this history." ―G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs "The strength of this book lies . . . in the exquisite portraits it paints of characters who stand behind the immortalized Pericles, Robespierre, and Thomas Jefferson . . . [Miller] forces the reader to sit up and realize that history isn’t a definitive grayed parchment beyond reproach, but actually a living force constantly capable of new interpretation and meaning in our current world. . . Like the ekklesia in Athens, the constituent assembly in Versailles, and the soviet in Petrograd – Can Democracy Work? offers insightful context on how our own body politic will survive these turbulent times." ―John Colin Marston, The Christian Science Monitor “This is a bold, eloquent, and utterly convincing history of what democracy has meant and should mean―from the Assembly of ancient Greece to the anti-Trump resistance. James Miller has produced one of the wisest reflections on the glories and limits of popular rule I have ever read." ―Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History “Democracy has always been at the center of James Miller’s career, whether he was investigating the sublime theories of the Enlightenment or the street politics of the 1960s. Now, at the very moment of democracy’s apparent endangerment, one of its best friends offers up the most capacious and inspiring history of it ever composed. From the Greeks to the present, Miller’s light touch and profound insight join each other on every page to make this a truly indispensable work for the present crisis.” ―Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World “No one is better qualified to wrestle with the riddle of democracy than James Miller, which is why I have been eagerly awaiting this brilliant and necessary book. Can Democracy Work? is an eloquent, clear-eyed account of democracy’s myriad challenges. This concise and compelling history deserves to be read and debated by all who still dare to dream of a society of equals. These pages left me feeling better prepared and reinvigorated to work toward a more democratic future.” ―Astra Taylor, director of What is Democracy? and author of The People’s Platform “James Miller, who has illuminated democracy's radical possibilities, now offers some sharp reflections on how those possibilities have fared over the centuries. At a moment when the very meaning of the word is up for grabs, Miller brings us back to philosophical essentials as forged by contingency, contradiction, and human folly. Refreshing and unsettling, here is some political intelligence in a dark and confusing time.” ―Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy “Distinguished historian of ideas James Miller’s short history of democracy and its different meanings is both compulsive and compulsory reading for our sometimes shockingly disenchanted times. Ever optimistic, Miller remains enamored of his native United States’s striking experiment in cosmopolitan self-governance, and stands proudly and persuasively tall for liberal―and democratic―ideals.” ―Paul Cartledge, author of Democracy: A Life “This sharp, spirited, engaged intellectual history of democracy, including its recent and often loose coupling with liberalism, combines an appraisal of both inherent and situational pitfalls with an appreciation of redemptive possibilities. If democracy is protean, what matters, this rich work teaches, is the quality of our normative choices and institutional imagination.” ―Ira I. Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time ". . . An attractively broad and accessible account of democracy from the Greeks to the present day. . .[guides] readers through the mass of difficult material with enviable clarity . . . [offers] impressive new evidence and analyses." ―David A. Bell, New York Review of Books "Engaging ....I’m particularly drawn to Miller’s investigation of a concept that most of us think we understand. As Miller demonstrates, “democracy” deserves a second look." ―Stan Persky, Dooney's Cafe About the Author James Miller is a professor of politics and the chair of liberal studies at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of The Passion of Michel Foucault and Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock & Roll, 1947–1977 , among other books. He lives in New York City.
- Features:
"Of all the books on democracy in recent years one of the best is James Miller’s Can Democracy Work? . . . Miller provides an intelligent journey through the turbulent past of this great human experiment in whether we can actually govern ourselves." ―David Blight, The Guardian A new history of the world’s most embattled idea Today, democracy is the world’s only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In Can Democracy Work? James Miller, the author of the classic history of 1960s protest Democracy Is in the Streets , offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present. As he shows, democracy has always been rife with inner tensions. The ancient Greeks preferred to choose leaders by lottery and regarded elections as inherently corrupt and undemocratic. The French revolutionaries sought to incarnate the popular will, but many of them came to see the people as the enemy. And in the United States, the franchise would be extended to some even as it was taken from others. Amid the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, communists, liberals, and nationalists all sought to claim the ideals of democracy for themselves―even as they manifestly failed to realize them.Ranging from the theaters of Athens to the tents of Occupy Wall Street, Can Democracy Work? is an entertaining and insightful guide to our most cherished―and vexed―ideal.
- Details:
  Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 18, 2018)
  Language: English
  Hardcover: 320 pages
  ISBN 10: 0374137641
  ISBN 13: 978-0374137649
  Item Weight: 12.8 ounces
  Dimensions: 6.42 x 1.25 x 9.12 inches
<|The End of Book|>

First, PREDICT the substantive review THIS user would most likely write about THIS book, using their persona + past reviews + this book's context. Then turn that prediction into a rubric.

Write 8-12 numbered criteria that a judge will use to check whether a CANDIDATE review COVERS THE KEY POINTS this user would actually make about THIS book. Ground every criterion in the user's likely CONTENT, not surface style:
- Their likely OVERALL STANCE / verdict on this book (would they like or dislike it, and why), inferred from their taste and this book's genre/premise/themes.
- The SPECIFIC aspects they would most likely comment on here -- name concrete elements from THIS book (particular plot points, characters, themes, pacing, craft, comparisons) that a reader like this user reacts to.
- Their characteristic OPINIONS / reactions (what they would praise or criticize here) and the direction/strength of sentiment.
- Any content they habitually include (recommendation, audience, warnings, comparisons).

Write the criteria to match HOW the candidate will be graded (coverage of the user's real review minus a penalty for extra content):
- Each criterion should reward COVERING a specific likely key point, checkable in a short review.
- Make them DISCRIMINATING: a candidate that writes a generic or merely on-topic review WITHOUT the user's specific likely take must score LOW; only a candidate that hits the user's actual likely points and stance scores HIGH.
- Include at least one criterion that PENALIZES speculative, hedging, off-target, or padded content not central to what this user would say.
- Do NOT reward surface formatting.

Output ONLY the rubric:
<rubric>
1. <criterion>
...
</rubric>