For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Who’s Afraid of Gender? is a book borne from an urgent moment. It is not so merely because gender is being taken up as a catch-all term for a variety of political aims but because the question of transgender existence has become mainstream, upsetting past gender theories—even Butler’s—and becoming the center of the gender … Read more
[ad_1] In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial, by Mona Chollet, is a revelatory collection of histories and experiences that have been carefully ignored across centuries of time. Even a devoted reader will find it difficult to think of a book besides Chollet’s that does … Read more
[ad_1] Michael Riedel writes his sequel to Razzle Dazzle kicking off where he ended with his well-received history of Broadway. Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway carries on in a similar way as this first book. Both books mention, and seem to be influenced by, William Goldman’s The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway (1969). … Read more
[ad_1] Double agents, covert operations, moles, dead drops, deep-sixed tapes, election meddling, secret identities, enhanced interrogation, brush passes, assassinations — when it comes to spy work, there is no shortage of bizarre and misshapen determinants that capture one’s imagination. And if these things are happening, what else is going on? The possibilities seem endless, especially … Read more
[ad_1] You may wish to note the below. As a hailing, this phrase is eccentric yet disarming. It also shares a description with the two characters that share the book’s title—Leonard and Hungry Paul. It is also a variation of Hungry Paul’s entry for the Chamber of Commerce’s sign-off contest, which he doesn’t want the … Read more
[ad_1] The title of Joyce Carol Oates’ fifty-ninth novel is extracted from Walt Whitman’s “A Clear Midnight,” which ends with: “pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.” These themes, indeed, subsist throughout Oates’s narrative, and one might even say that Oates loves them best, too. They are the pilot light … Read more
[ad_1] What’s fascinating about the stories inside Ho Sok Fong’s latest short story collection, Lake Like A Mirror translated by Natascha Bruce, is that they hit the reader hard, and at the same time they frustrate the ability of the reader to parse her scenes. With all of the ambiguity and occult that punctuate her … Read more
[ad_1] In Beyond The Sea, Paul Lynch takes a panga boat lost at sea and fashions it into a story that seems to inhale and exhale with the very days and nights experienced on Earth. The novel, which was released overseas last year, begins when Bolivar, a fisherman mixed up with a cartel, coerces Hector … Read more
[ad_1] Tola Rotimi Abraham’s first novel is a story of tragedy. It is not supposed to be hopeful. But there is hope in the telling. Black Sunday is told through a scattering of episodes that center around the lives of four siblings in Lagos–twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike, and their brothers, Andrew and Peter. Their … Read more