Book Reviews

[ad_1] Books, perhaps more so than other media, have the remarkable ability to stay timeless after generations on end. The author’s dilemma is finding balance between establishing setting through concrete detail without allowing the material to become dated. But what happens when the author throws this idea out the window? Jeet Thayil’s Low could only … Read more

[ad_1] In the world of Interior Chinatown, Asian Americans don’t get to play the dashing leads in TV shows. They don’t even get to be the everyman. Limited to one-dimensional roles like Egg Roll Cook, Young Dragon Lady, and Striving Immigrant, there’s no way to advance beyond the exoticism or “perpetual foreigner” status that comes … Read more

[ad_1] Today the founding editor of the Chicago Review of Books launches a new passion project. Say hello to the Southern Review of Books, a site dedicated to Southern literature that’s run by an all-volunteer team. The site was launched in partnership with the Queens University of Charlotte’s MFA program, and senior editors and contributing … Read more

[ad_1] At some point during my maiden reading of The Snow Collectors, I felt compelled to turn to the person sitting beside me and explain the book’s plot. This person—a friend who is by no means coy about taunting me for what she might deem my “less accessible” taste in novels—arched an eyebrow and said … Read more

[ad_1] American news junkies, preoccupied as they have been with domestic affairs, may only vaguely remember a story that made international headlines in the summer of 2016: Qandeel Baloch, nicknamed the “Kim Kardashian of Pakistan,” was murdered. Her brother openly admitted to strangling her, because she had dishonored the family name with her provocative videos … Read more

[ad_1] From her home in California last month, Lidia Yuknavitch told me she was having an unusually good day: “I think the world is going to shit right now, but inside my house it was good, so I just gave myself one day to feel okay.” I told her that she had answered at least … Read more

[ad_1] Maria Kuznetsova’s novel Oksana, Behave! follows the fierce, and fiercely funny, misadventures of Oksana, a character whose every act of aggression and defiance proves how very full of love she is. The book begins with seven-year-old Oksana newly arrived in Florida from the Soviet Union. Called a “baby Bolshevik” by a teacher (after Oksana … Read more

[ad_1] The winter drags on, but that’s fine with us: The cold gives us an excuse to stay in and read, read, read! February brings a bevy of incredible novels, poetry collections, and works of non-fiction that we can’t wait to crack open by a crackling fire (or, more likely, a heated radiator–that’s city living … Read more

[ad_1] Death is a blank stare. It’s an enigma for the living. While we try to interpret the concept of death, we’ll never really know it until we experience it for ourselves. What we do know about death is the feeling of loss, the disruption of daily rhythms, companionship, and love. It’s difficult. Grief is … 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