For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] There is a certain kind of fiction that, in its pitch-perfect encapsulation of reality, functions to help us mourn the distance between the world we want and the world as it is. These are the stories and novels of Marie-Helene Bertino, from her 2012 story collection Safe as Houses and her debut novel 2 … Read more
[ad_1] In one of the many poignant moments of his first inauguration in 2009, Barack Obama autographed the program of Civil Rights icon and longtime Congressman John Lewis with the words, “Because of you, John.” Lewis remained grateful for the encomium for the rest of his life, but he would also be the first to … Read more
[ad_1] Termush, a 1967 novella by Sven Holm (translated into English by Sylvia Clayton), is an understated accounting of events at a luxury resort that has been transformed into a safe haven for a select group of survivors of a nuclear disaster. While concerns about wealth inequality and post-apocalyptic survival remained relevant throughout the Cold … Read more
[ad_1] You never can tell where life will take you. When I met Beth Uznis Johnson at an MFA alumni event for Queens University of Charlotte, she lived in Michigan, and I lived in Chicago. Who’d have guessed that a decade later, she’d live a few blocks from me, and we’d meet for Monday writing … Read more
[ad_1] During the launch of her first book, Down Girl, a popular work about sexism and misogyny, Kate Manne was doing what she could to avoid appearing in public. She turned down a book tour and in-person interviews, and supplied media outlets with her own photographs. Manne was self-conscious of her body’s size, and didn’t … Read more
[ad_1] National Book Award finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell’s new novel, The Waters, highlights the world of the Zooks—four generations of women led by matriarch and herbalist Hermine—as they claim their place in the male-dominated world of rural Whiteheart, Michigan. From their cabin on an island in the swamp, also called The Waters, Hermine “Herself,” with … Read more
[ad_1] When the Mexica emperor Moctezuma sent his emissaries to report on the Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés in 1519, neither side understood what the other was saying. It was only through a chain of translations between a Franciscan friar named Aguilar who spoke some Mayan and a young Nahuatl woman given to Cortés as … Read more
[ad_1] First thing, let me get something out of the way: I’ve known İnci Atrek, author of Holiday Country, for a long time. We went to Wellesley College together and both took an especially memorable travel writing class our senior year. I saw the earliest glimmers of Holiday Country in the personal essays Atrek shared … Read more
[ad_1] We live in a golden age of the armchair detective, a person who aims to help solve a real-life mystery without the official qualifications for such work. Global fascination with true crime has led to an explosion of documentaries, websites, online forums, and more; a 2023 Pew Research Center study1 found that true crime … Read more
[ad_1] It’s probably an impossible task to chronicle every book coming out from writers in a city of nearly three million people, but here we are. This is the second year of what has become my favorite and most daunting annual project, and here I am again worried that I may have missed something. But … Read more