For The Book Obsessed
[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] Sarahland, the debut story collection from Sam Cohen, links disparate stories through a unique framework: each story features a character named Sarah. This architecture allows Cohen to explore a variety of topics from heartbreak to youthful self-discovery. The stories stand alone, but by linking them with Sarahs, the collection manifests something more complex. There … Read more
[ad_1] Centuries of religious and philosophical debate have centered on the question of whether we have free will or not, with modern neuroscience and psychology framed around the conflict between nurturing influences and natural biological predisposition. The debate sits at the center of Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife, a fast-paced, page-turning science fiction thriller delving … Read more
[ad_1] Kink, edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, is a titillating collection of stories about sex, fetish, love, and loneliness from a diverse group of literary authors. Although the collection includes detailed descriptions of sex acts, Kink is primarily an exploration of intimacy, power, and our human need to share an emotional bond. Communication is a … 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] In our overly connected world, it is a rare moment to not have all the information. We feel more secure with the constant feed of data, even when that information foretells doom and gloom. Rumaan Alam plays on our anxiety of the unknown in his third novel Leave The World Behind, a fast-paced and … 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] David Goodwillie leans heavily on nostalgic sentimentality to carry his literary mystery novel, Kings County, but the suspense-driven plot flounders as the characters bounce between the highlights of a has-been tour of scenester Brooklyn. Set mainly in north Brooklyn, the epicenter of hipster culture, the novel unfolds during a period of rapid gentrification overlaid … 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