The BookBrowse Review

Published July 30, 2025

ISSN: 1930-0018

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Contents

In This Edition of
The BookBrowse Review

Highlighting indicates debut books

Editor's Introduction
Reviews
Hardcovers Paperbacks
First Impressions
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Literary Fiction


Historical Fiction


Short Stories


Essays


Poetry & Novels in Verse


Thrillers


Romance


Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History


Biography/Memoir


History, Current Affairs and Religion


Young Adults

Literary Fiction


Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History


Graphic Novels


Biography/Memoir


History, Current Affairs and Religion


Extras
Book Jacket

God and Sex
by Jon Raymond
5 Aug 2025
256 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Literary Fiction

From the award-winning author of Denial comes a novel about a New Age writer whose life is irrevocably changed when a devastating climate disaster forces him to confront his belief in the existence of God.

What if God spoke to you? Would you hear Him? Would you obey His command?

Arthur Zinn, an author of high-end spiritual texts, has fallen in love with a librarian married to a newfound close friend. When an environmental disaster threatens her life, Arthur's frantic prayers lead to a mystifying event that challenges his assumptions about the nature of the universe and the divine. In God and Sex, Oregon Book Award winner and acclaimed screenwriter Jon Raymond masterfully entwines themes of ecology, mortality, art, faith, and the tangled complexities of carnal love.

"A struggling new age author's brush with a forest fire sends him in search of help from a higher power in this resonant drama from Raymond...Disastrous events and surprising twists ensue, testing Arthur's sense of reality and the divine, as Raymond drives this potent gut-punch of a novel to its emotional conclusion. Readers will be floored." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jon Raymond is the author of five works of fiction, including the Oregon Book Award–winning story collection Livability and the Oregon Book Award–nominated novel Denial. As a screenwriter, he has collaborated on numerous films with the director Kelly Reichardt, including Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for his screenwriting on the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce directed by Todd Haynes and starring Kate Winslet. He was the editor of Plazm Magazine, associate and contributing editor at Tin House magazine, and a member of the Board of Directors at Literary Arts. His writing has appeared in Zoetrope, Playboy, Tin House, The Village Voice, Artforum, Bookforum, and many other places. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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