For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Hot enough out there for you? As we turn to the season of family BBQs, fireworks, and lounging by the pool, it’s understandable if some of our reading falls by the wayside. Adults don’t get participation stickers from their library programs, after all. But your TBR pile will still be there when you’re ready, … Read more
[ad_1] It’s a relief, sometimes, to read science fiction that is a straightforward political allegory. Tolkien’s famous “cordial dislike” for allegory is good guidance for creating believable, durable fantastic worlds, but there’s also a space and a need for works that have their sights set on current issues: less perennial, perhaps, but no less pertinent. … Read more
[ad_1] Lucy Bryan’s debut is the stunning collection of essays, In Between Places. An avid backpacker, Bryan ties together nature writing, the historical context of the places where she has lived and hiked, and the very personal story of Bryan’s divorce and her new love. Essays in the collection have appeared in Quarterly West, Nashville … Read more
[ad_1] In my parents’ house there is a shelf set aside for over a dozen yearbooks, stowed away and rarely seen or even thought about, and Shashi Bhat’s The Most Precious Substance on Earth brought to life that dusty shelf and its contents. The packaging of memory in glimpses. The fleeting impressions of former lives. … Read more
[ad_1] In her essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin suggests that the “Hero story,” the one of conquest and knife-thrusting, is not the only form of storytelling available, even though it has become the dominant one. The alternative concept Le Guin offers is the bottle: “Not just the bottle of … Read more
[ad_1] Tara M. Stringfellow’s newest novel, Memphis, captures the beauty of Black culture and how beauty is perceived by her characters. The brutality of life strips beauty away so quickly and so permanently that storytellers often pair beauty with trauma as if they are two sides of the same coin. Stringfellow manages to avoid those … Read more
[ad_1] In the nineteen journalistic profiles that comprise The Tribe: Portraits of Cuba, Carlos Manuel Álvarez represents cross sections of Cuban life. Translated from Spanish by Frank Wynne and Rahul Berry, Álvarez’s literary portraits depict, among others, the New York Yankees pitcher José Contreras, the dissident poet Rafael Alcides, a migrant couple fleeing through Central … Read more
[ad_1] With striking, poetic prose, Taylor Brorby’s Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land reveals a hidden life in the wide open spaces of the Midwest. The complexities of queerness in places where it can be lonely at best and dangerous at worst, and Brorby’s quest to find a space where he … Read more
[ad_1] Ottessa Moshfegh’s fourth novel, Lapvona, is a gruesome experiment in historical fiction. There’s grisly death, cannibalism, rape, mysticism, deception, revenge, hints at pedophilia, and very little love. The characters bleakly reflect the worst in humanity, and grotesque antics dot almost every page—facts that compete with great storytelling and end up creating few opportunities for … Read more
[ad_1] Lisa Taddeo has fostered a reputation for understanding women’s sexual prowess. In Taddeo’s breakout nonfiction book Three Women, she embedded herself in the lives of three disparate people to explore how their sexual experiences impacted them and their ongoing relationship with sex. The protagonist of her debut novel Animal has endured sexual trauma. Her … Read more