For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Henry David Thoreau observed that men often lead lives of quiet desperation, and although he omits women, they often also lead lives of quiet desperation, as is the case for the women under examination in Genevieve Plunkett’s debut story collection, Prepare Her. In this collection, the domestic lives of female protagonists come under scrutiny, … Read more
[ad_1] Men and women often have an unequal share of power in their relationships. In the debut story collection, Objects of Desire, Clare Sestanovich explores the relationships men and women share, and examines the power dynamics between them. The men primarily escape without consequence while the women bear the emotional and literal burdens the characters … Read more
[ad_1] Science fiction dystopias have often featured authoritarian governments, yet increasingly in the real world, the nation-state is ceding power to privately held corporations. Hypercapitalism threatens individual liberty in Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak, where two megacorporations have all but replaced the American government and control essential natural resources. Mal and her best friend Jessa live in … Read more
[ad_1] Science fiction dystopias are often deployed as a means of examining politics, ideology, or technology, but for Izumi Suzuki, the medium serves an intimate exploration of anxiety, pain, and sadness. The translated stories collected in Terminal Boredom depend on science fiction dystopias, but focus on characters who are broken and seeking their own personal … Read more
[ad_1] Our civilization has always had a precarious grasp on existence, although between the pandemic and the climate-induced natural disasters of the past year, collapse feels a bit more imminent. Claire Holroyde would like to add another fear to our anxiety: dark comets. In her debut novel, The Effort, a comet large enough to extinguish … Read more
[ad_1] Danielle Evans’s second story collection, The Office Of Historical Corrections, draws on the current zeitgeist with provocative narratives examining race, female friendship, and privilege. The collection concludes with a novella by the same name dealing with both our present obsession with truth and the historical legacy of racism. Women carry this collection, and the … Read more
[ad_1] As coronavirus locked down cities across the country and work from home orders liberated office workers from daily commutes, many people suddenly found themselves returning, either temporarily or permanently, to the suburbs so many of them had fled. Jason Diamond’s new book, The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs, arrives just in time to … Read more
[ad_1] Set in the fictional, Hudson Valley village of Clapham, Emma Straub’s All Adults Here explores the city dweller’s pastoral fantasy. Goat farms, a five-and-dime lined main street, and a gilded age manor house serve as the setting for this family drama. All Adults Here follows Straub’s formula of a sprawling cast of intimately connected … Read more
[ad_1] We have been living in the future for a while now: drones deliver packages, watches track vital signs, meat substitutes grow in labs. No matter the modern problem, there’s an app for that. Even the self-driving car seems a plausible possibility. Despite these innovations, none of us seem happier for it. Political polarization, melancholy, … Read more