Crime Reading Pays in Thrills and Chills – Chicago Review of Books

Crime Reading Pays in Thrills and Chills – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Personally, I’ve already made a plan to forget 2021 ever happened—except when it comes to mystery and thriller reading. In that realm, it’s been a banner year. Of course, I haven’t read everything published, so some crime fiction which has already seen huge success in sales or will soon dominate the awards programs next … Read more

Poetry Collections for Midwinter Nights – Chicago Review of Books

Poetry Collections for Midwinter Nights – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In Persian culture, on the winter solstice, we have a variety of rituals to mark the longest night of the year, one of which is to read poetry. Perhaps it’s no surprise that poetry books are some of my favorites to review, given that cultural DNA. Concurrently, at this time of year in the … Read more

7 Works of Criticism You May Have Missed in 2021 – Chicago Review of Books

7 Works of Criticism You May Have Missed in 2021 – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] If there’s one thing that was certain about this year, it’s that nothing was certain. And yet, the impulse to make sense of our world and its persistent forms continued. Texts that critically surveyed our world—presented in varied genres and approaches—drew us in to consider—with hope, curiosity, dismay, and startling surprise—all that abounds. From … Read more

Confronting the Injustice in our Justice System in “They Can’t Take Your Name” – Chicago Review of Books

Confronting the Injustice in our Justice System in “They Can’t Take Your Name” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] It’s been thirty years since the Father’s Day Bank Massacre of 1991, a robbery at the United Bank Tower in Denver which ended in the murders of four bank guards. The prime suspect, a former cop, was acquitted at trial. Anyone familiar with the incident can easily trace the similar threads that Robert Justice … Read more

Loss and Longing in Cara Blue Adams’ “You Never Get It Back” – Chicago Review of Books

Loss and Longing in Cara Blue Adams’ “You Never Get It Back” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] The first story in any collection sets the tone and expectations, so Cara Blue Adams’ decision to begin her linked collection, You Never Get It Back, with a rather metaphorical story is striking. But Adams isn’t afraid to make bold choices in her fiction, and it’s little wonder this debut collection won this year’s … Read more

An Interview with Joe Moshenska – Chicago Review of Books

An Interview with Joe Moshenska – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Oxford Professor of English Literature Joe Moshenska has done something arguably long overdue in Milton studies. Approaching the Olympian of English letters from a mix of new historical and reader-response positions, Moshenska buries himself deeply into an imagined psyche of the poet and polemicist, propagandist and Latinist, John Milton while also digging down into … Read more

The Dichotomy of Range in “Mothers, Fathers, and Others” – Chicago Review of Books

The Dichotomy of Range in “Mothers, Fathers, and Others” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In this latest collection Siri Hustvedt demonstrates her tremendous range as an essayist, with topics ranging from motherhood to reading during a pandemic to misogyny to Jane Austen’s expertise in rhetoric. Even within individual essays in Mothers, Fathers, and Others she jumps from topic to topic, and this diversity presents a dichotomy of sorts. … Read more