For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Krys Malcolm Belc’s memoir The Natural Mother of the Child is a nonlinear exploration of what parenthood means outside the gender binary. In the memoir, composed of a series of interlocking essays, Belc works to get a sense of who he is as a parent by reaching back to his own childhood and delving … Read more
[ad_1] When young Ira arrives for her appointment, she is prepared to be transported to The Gateway to Heaven, 6,070 light years away. But the technicians shepherding her through the process fear there’s more to it than what’s advertised. “The Far Side of the Universe” was translated from Chinese by Michelle Deeter. A … Read more
[ad_1] Paul Mendez’s debut novel, Rainbow Milk, begins in 1956 in the voice of Norman Alonso, a skilled gardener who arrives from Jamaica to the industrial town of Blixton with his wife and their two children. Norman and his family are among the first wave of migrants of the Windrush generation who traveled from the … Read more
[ad_1] A debut novel should pack a wallop. Be it through the language or the themes, the feelings the text evokes in readers must be powerful and undeniable. Jesse McCarthy’s novel The Fugitivities does just that, and can perhaps be best explained as a music playlist curated by the likes of authors Jonathan Lethem and … Read more
[ad_1] Just like Tiya Miles, historian at Harvard University and author of All That She Carried, I grew up in Cincinnati, a city where history, voices and ghosts enter without knocking. For Miles, these echoes are held within her Great Aunt Margaret Stribling’s quilt, for me it is my great grandmother’s silver spoon, and for … Read more
[ad_1] Welcome to another installment of a collaboration between the Chicago Review of Books and the Your Favorite Book podcast. Malavika Praseed, frequent CHIRB contributor and podcast host, seeks to talk to readers and writers about the books that light a fire inside them. What’s your favorite book and why? This week’s guest is Jesse … Read more
[ad_1] My sister used to live on Wellington Avenue. I would drive in from Iowa, search for free parking on nearby Cannon Drive, and stay the weekend. We sometimes walked around, late at night, and I could hear people at all stages of love affairs conducting their lives in the street. Lakeview East happens to … Read more
[ad_1] This is a prequel to “Sinew and Steel and What They Told”, published in 2020 and available to read here. Graff’s official role is muscle for the Visigoth – but his personal mission is internally cataloguing all of his experiences to relay to the other beings from his home planet when they cross paths. … Read more
[ad_1] Elinor Cleghorn’s Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World is an intriguing exploration of the history of women’s health, specifically how women are perceived as individuals and members of a larger healthcare system. The theme, across countries and time periods, is centered on disbelief. The female body, long-held in a place of … Read more
[ad_1] The final story of Nana Nkweti’s debut short story collection, “Kinks,” bears the book title in a telling passage: “No matter how many boardroom doors Jennifer walked through, sometimes she felt her steps falter—in the Ghanaian beauty shop, at Awing tribal meetings, she felt like a counterfeit African, felt the unworthiness of the maid’s … Read more