For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Being a debut author is overwhelming in any year, but those who published books in 2020 have dealt with challenges none could have ever imagined (a global pandemic, the news cycle from hell, and everything and everyone going online). Despite that, this year brought us many standout books by established trans, non-binary, and gender … Read more
[ad_1] There’s perhaps no adage more cliche than the phrase, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” We can hear this, but so very few of us have actually taken it to heart; maybe we’ve simply reached our saturation point with it. Walking has taken on something of a new color in the quarantine year, … Read more
[ad_1] Works of criticism, or more broadly, texts that critically survey our world, often don’t subscribe to fixed genres or easily distinguishable forms. During a year that rattled our attention and pulled hard at our ability to concentrate, these books, in their varied forms, drew us in. Through their joy (and pessimism) and critical perspective, … Read more
[ad_1] John Muir said, “thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity.” Still true over a century later, I’ve turned to this phrase often during hard times and more often during 2020, which turned out to be one of the … Read more
[ad_1] The first sentence of Michael Bible’s latest novel, The Ancient Hours, is a lie. “We were innocent,” is an immediate provocation that gives the impression of someone in an interrogation room telling authorities a story agreed upon by a group of accomplices. Bible makes a bold statement beginning with this line, and also by … Read more
[ad_1] In Patricia Ann McNair’s newest collection Responsible Adults, many of the stories take place in a fictional town called New Hope. One can easily imagine a town with this name exists in the Midwest, and it’s also fitting for the theme: each story teems with an ache toward hope, a moodiness tinged with heartbreaking … Read more
[ad_1] It has been a hectic year, to say the least. Without being able to regularly go into bookshops to browse the tables and staff picks, new releases in translation that may have become some of your favorites might have instead slipped under your radar. Hopefully, this list of a baker’s dozen books will help. … Read more
[ad_1] Alchemy may no longer be considered a reputable or factual science, but it still shapes our current understanding of chemistry, physics, and biology. In her new book, The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700, scholar and historian Jennifer Rampling shows that this influence is worth chronicling, not only for marking how attitudes towards science … Read more
[ad_1] Boldness incarnate. A laugh in the face of subtlety and propriety. These are fragmented phrases to describe Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez, and they do not go far enough. Hernandez writes for herself, for the communities she represents, and for anyone who has ever felt othered in society. Her feminism is intersectional, her prose electric, … Read more
[ad_1] 2020 felt like horror, romance, cookbooks, and a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller novel all wrapped up in one. Whether you felt more like a Jane Austen protagonist, living a quiet domestic life, or Ms. Frizzle, The Magic School Bus teacher, trying to impart some home-schooled science knowledge to your young pupils, or one of the weary group … Read more