Book Reviews

[ad_1] The Ides of March are upon us — the 15th to be exact — but here at the ChiRB we’re more about commemorating dates than “bewaring” them (or so advised the soothsayer in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar). You could spend the day with a hefty history book or biography of Caesar, but if those … 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] 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] March is always one of our favorite months of the year for books, and this year is no exception! We’re especially excited to see so many great books are out this month from independent presses. Here are some of the books we’re most looking forward to this month. Recollections of My NonexistenceBy Rebecca SolnitViking … Read more

[ad_1] Remaining insulated from the real world is no longer an easy choice for Wallace in Brandon Taylor’s novel, Real Life. After discovering his grad school biochem research had been contaminated by a jealous and racist peer, setting him back weeks if not months, he leaves the lab to meet with friends only to spend … Read more

[ad_1] Need to escape from the dire state of the world? Try reading one of these transporting short stories, all published in 2019 or 2020. Crossing the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, these stories offer escapes into worlds even stranger than ours. (Full transparency: I’m including all four stories I commissioned for … Read more

[ad_1] When asked about the best ways to prepare one’s children for the “coming chaos,” the protagonist of Jenny Offill’s new novel Weather responds, “You can teach them to sew, to farm, to build.” Then, more importantly, she adds, “Techniques for calming a fearful mind might be the most useful though.” As the title suggests, … Read more