For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul by the Indian writer Taran Khan is exciting in the way unclassifiable things are exciting. It’s no surprise that it was recently announced as the winner of the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. It is a refreshing work of nonfiction, but also an exercise in … Read more
[ad_1] Across his fiction, journalism, and letters, Fyodor Dostoevsky spoke in many voices. He spoke as a radical who would face mock execution and years in prison for plotting against the tsar. He spoke as a Russian Orthodox believer excoriating liberal society for its smallness and lack of faith. He spoke as a prophet carrying … Read more
[ad_1] As primarily a reader of fiction, I am wary of non-fiction that attempts to encompass an entire city in a single book. I can’t help but begin with a maximally heightened sense of caution; a complete image of a city seems so unlikely as to dissuade attempts in the first place. Usually, I am … Read more
[ad_1] The title of Raymond Antrobus’s debut collection, The Perseverance, derives from the name of the London pub the poet’s father used to frequent, an establishment whose doors were shut upon young Raymond, with “50 p. to make [him] disappear,” many an afternoon. Deaf from birth, the boy would stand in front of this everyday … Read more
[ad_1] A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, features Hanif Abdurraqib’s considerable talents as a poet, essayist and thoughtful social commentator. Reading this book reminded me of listening to the late-night DJs of my youth—I especially remember Alison Steele, the Nightbird—who used songs as the starting point to improvise a jazz … Read more
[ad_1] “I saw my mother raise a man from the dead,” Libertie Sampson tells us at the beginning of Kaitlyn Greenidge’s second novel. Libertie is a young girl living with her mother, a trained physician, in a community of free Blacks in Brooklyn, and the man is an escaped slave she calls Mr. Ben who … Read more
[ad_1] In The Comeback, I explore the impact of early stardom and abuse on a young Hollywood actress, Grace Turner. There are multiple power dynamics explored in the book, including the connection between Grace and her audience, who think they own part of her; the dysfunctional relationship Grace has with her parents, who feel both … Read more
[ad_1] After a storytelling show a couple of years ago, years after the Weinstein news was everywhere, I mentioned to a group of women who gathered around me after my performance that I had been sexually assaulted twice in my twenties. My point wasn’t to discuss my harm. My point, I went on to tell … Read more
[ad_1] “Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.” —C.S. Lewis Take a seat at the table, get comfortable, and let’s talk about the magic of food in fiction. No matter how our memories come to us—whether an involuntary sensorial moment (explained best in Marcel Proust’s famous tea-soaked madeleine episode from In Search of … Read more
[ad_1] We are thrilled to reprint the Spanish translation of Naomi Kritzer’s Tor.com original story “Little Free Library”, first published in SuperSonic‘s February 2021 issue. Many thanks to Naomi, Cristina Jurado, Marcheto, and the SuperSonic team! Meigan construyó su nido de libros a partir de un kit, porque quería que fuese una obra … Read more