For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Reading Megan Stielstra is like having a cool older sister telling you it’ll be okay. She doesn’t sugarcoat the truth; she acknowledges things are hard. That honesty makes you trust her. Plus, she’s smart and makes you laugh—it’s no wonder we walk away from reading her books feeling better. My first introduction to Stielstra’s … 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 Said … Read more
[ad_1] American Estrangement, a new story collection by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, sketches America in both space and time. We are anchored in the here and now, yet the stories do not read as grasping for relevance, or as dated. Rather, Sayrafiezadeh captures one of the most essential feelings of the modern-day United States, apathy, and holds … Read more
[ad_1] Anita Kopacz’s debut novel Shallow Waters is a vibrant reimagining of Yemaya, an Orisha (deity) from the Yoruba religion, and her place in American history. The story of Yemaya was passed down through oral tradition, brought to the “New World” by enslaved Africans as early as the 16th century. In Shallow Waters, Yemaya exists … Read more
[ad_1] It’s been several years since Calling a Wolf a Wolf shot into the literary consciousness, and since its tremendous success, the award-winning poet Kaveh Akbar has also made a measurable impact as an educator, the current Poetry Editor of The Nation, and a remarkably generous poetry supporter. His sophomore collection, Pilgrim Bell, enters into … Read more
[ad_1] In her most recent book The President and the Frog, Carolina De Robertis helps us to see the world as strange as it is, again. We are taken into the home of the former president of an unnamed Latin American country, where he has invited journalists to discuss his legacy and democracy’s present hard … Read more
[ad_1] The drought is getting worse. Rice farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are resorting to selling their water as an economic alternative to poor crop yields. Wildfires tear through the brush, destroying homes and displacing countless human and non-human residents. Mile-high fire clouds—what scientists call “pyrocumulonimbus”—gather in the sky and hurtle bolts of lightning … Read more
[ad_1] Brian Evenson’s new collection of short stories, The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, is set in a not-so-distant future where the environment has unsurprisingly degraded even further than what we face now, as well as in fantasy worlds entirely unlike our own. No matter the setting, there is an ever-present sense that things are … Read more
[ad_1] Alena has momentarily escaped her world and its imminent gravitational collapse by cheating her way into the selection process of the Board of Cosmogamy. By passing this stringent exam, she may finally learn the secrets of building a universe from first principles. But the competition is smarter and better prepared, and even Alena’s cunning … Read more
[ad_1] Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove returns after twelve years with an exquisite new poetry collection, Playlist for the Apocalypse. Her poems magnify the marginalized individual, simultaneously illuminating national and global failed attempts at democracy. As always, her words are raw, poignant, and accessible. The opening segment, “After Egypt,” came … Read more