For The Book Obsessed
Should you read that book you’ve had your eye on? Will it totally rock or sink like a stone? Check out these book reviews from book lovers like you to help you find your next great read!
[ad_1] A few months into the pandemic, the apartment building across the street from mine had a parking lot party. Tucked away in the tree-lined Germantown section of Philadelphia on a hot summer day this was unusual. Over the months leading up to that afternoon, my neighborhood of buses, cars, and a lively population had … Read more
[ad_1] In her debut novel, Here in the Dark, prize-winning culture reporter and theater critic for the New York Times Alexis Soloski crafts a psychological thriller around Vivian Parry, a Manhattan-based theater critic notorious for her acerbic reviews and her predilection for mixing sex, booze, and pills to quell the anxiety and grief she feels … Read more
[ad_1] What do we ask of art? How, indeed, can we know what it is? On this, the philosophers tend to disagree. At some level, we know it when we see it, as the Supreme Court once said about some other hard-to-define thing. In the twenty-first century, it is probably the most politic to say … Read more
[ad_1] In a 2018 interview, author Stacy Hardy cited Sylvia Wynter as one of her favorite authors and theorists; Hardy specifically noted her admiration for Wynter’s work on the social strictures and boundaries that form a shared concept of “humanity.” Hardy, like Wynter, is deeply invested in the liberatory potential of asking, What does it … Read more
[ad_1] On December 7, 2023, we came together for the 2023 Chicago Review of Books (CHIRBy) Awards, co-presented by StoryStudio Chicago! Now in its eighth year, the CHIRBy Awards honor the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short essays and stories that feature Chicago and our strong literary community. Congratulations to this year’s winners and to … Read more
[ad_1] Book influencers are popular on virtually all social media platforms—the biggest being TikTok, Instagram and YouTube—and one of the most popular content to create is a book haul. One YouTube video shows the unboxing of an Amazon purchase of over 40 books. While Amazon is not the place to support the book industry and … Read more
[ad_1] When I teach Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties, I start with the book’s dedication, which is addressed not to So’s parents or loved ones but to “everyone who underestimated me, including myself.” I also make sure to note the book’s acknowledgements. Like most authors, So spends the bulk of this section generously thanking family, friends, … Read more
[ad_1] In anticipation of the 2023 Chicago Review of Books (CHIRBy) Awards ceremony, we asked our finalists a few questions about their books, their inspirations, and their favorite way to spend 2 hours and $50 in Chicago. In Part II, we talk to: Stay tuned for the announcement of our 2023 Chicago Review of Books … Read more
[ad_1] Gran Canaria’s steep radial gorges pile the island up like sandcastles hastily built, and when the Atlas mountains announce the end of the desert, clouds appear in the shape of a shark whose tail flips at the southern coast of Spain, whose fin-tip nudges the southern Alps, whose nose will dive any moment into … Read more
[ad_1] Ani Gjika’s An Unruled Body follows the author from the turbulent final years of Albanian communism through an era of transition and on to a somewhat fated path to Boston—as a matter of fact, it is her “grandmother’s faith that gets [her] family to the U.S.” In this memoir, the passage from girlhood to … Read more