Book Reviews

[ad_1] The Exchange Exchange is Todd Van Luling’s new conversation series with authors of recent economics books. For the first edition of this economics interview series, I decided to highlight a book about how economists often make mistakes. I’m a novice to the field of economics and have long seen the economy as a sort … Read more

[ad_1] Kimberly M. Zieselman is an intersex woman and outspoken activist. She refuses to be seen as part of the “happy silent majority,” the so-called majority of intersex folks glad they were lied to about the surgeries performed on them. In fact, Zieselman loudly proclaims that the idea of the “happy silent majority” is a … Read more

[ad_1] Please forgive the lateness of this review. Kameron Hurley’s bloody, thrilling mic-drop of a fantasy novel, The Broken Heavens, hit bookstores in mid-January, and here it is, almost March Madness, and only now am I typing out judgments like “bloody,” “thrilling,” and “mic-drop of a fantasy novel.” The business of reviewing is bound up … Read more

[ad_1] Deb Olin Unferth’s new novel, Barn 8, comes in at least 300 parts. It is the story of the 300 (or so) people who descend on a farm to steal a million chickens, how those people and those chickens got there, and why. Unferth’s formal invention, always a central aspect of her work, is … Read more

[ad_1] Photo by Dogs & Not Dogs Photography Critical Conversations, a lecture series at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, is designed to facilitate civil discourse on important current events. On February 25th, the series featured the topic “Responses to Climate Change.” The interdisciplinary panel included author and activist Bill McKibben, journalist Karenna Gore, … Read more

[ad_1] Shakespeare’s plays have long been the gold standard of drama. Opening on scenes like witches toiling over brews, quarreling families, and a ghost sighting, the Shakespearean play starts late, right before the moment when  his characters’ lives change. The building of momentum, decisions that doom fates, a hero’s solo journey as his control diminishes—as … Read more

[ad_1] Lily King’s new novel, Writers & Lovers, is a glimpse into life as a female artist in 1990s Boston. The story is told by Casey, a debt-ridden waitress with a graduate degree who’s trying to finish the novel she’s been working on for six years. The recent death of her mother has left her … Read more

[ad_1] “What’s beautiful about the essay is you can resist the impulse to make the categories clean. You can make it muddy and fluid,” Jordan Kisner said in an interview with Rachel Z. Arndt from Publishers Weekly. And the fluidity of Kisner’s essays in her debut book, Thin Places, is arguably the most striking thing … Read more

[ad_1] It was, one of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s private secretaries had to confess, a sight both “magnificent and terrible.” On a September night in 1940, John Colville watched from his bedroom window as German bombers carried out one of the first raids of the London Blitz. Explosions and fires lit up the night sky; … Read more

[ad_1] Jenny Offill’s third novel, Weather, is a cross-section of our current moment, alternating between anxiety and despair about climate change, our political situation, and our messed-up personal lives, and through its fragments revealing how all these concerns are interconnected. The novel is the answer to the question, What is happening? And points toward the … Read more