For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] To follow SJ Sindu’s work over the past few years is to admire diversity of form. From novels (Marriage of a Thousand Lies, Blue-Skinned Gods) to children’s literature (Shakti) to chapbooks (Dominant Genes) to short stories, Sindu proves there are so many ways interpret modern life—through fairy tale tropes, literary parallels, and tightly framed … Read more
[ad_1] By the pricking of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes at the Chicago Review of Books. We’ve been brewing up this list of our favorite recent horror books to fill your Halloween with frights of all kinds. A dash of monsters, a pinch of vampires, a draught of ghosts: these are the ingredients for … Read more
[ad_1] Kelsey Norris’s debut collection of stories, House Gone Quiet, tackles everything from being ostracized by one’s community, a square peg amongst round holes, to being part of communities held together by suffering, wonder, fear, and outrage. Each story’s setting is rarely explicitly stated, yet the environs feel familiar, perhaps because the experiences of the characters … Read more
[ad_1] The protagonist of Vengeance is Mine, (translated by Jordan Stump from La Vengeance m’appartient), Marie NDiaye’s twelfth novel, is known to the reader only by her title and surname. A French lawyer, she is Maître Susane, and at the novel’s opening, she has recently opened a struggling law practice. She drives an ancient car … Read more
[ad_1] I never had the kind of quintessential Best Friend™ like you see in movies. One that surprised me with a latte after a breakup and knew me so well they could finish my sentences. My friendships tended to be less consistent and more complicated. And so when Lane Moore, author of How to Be … Read more
[ad_1] On the “wine-dark” Aegean seas of Homer’s Odyssey, the merchants of Tyre and Sidon, of Byblos and Carthage, put out from their home ports—busy hives of activity crammed with merchants from all over the ancient world—in order to, like free-flowing dolphins, traverse the waterways of the Mediterranean. This ease of connection was not only … Read more
[ad_1] It is evident from the very first pages of Ray Shell’s Iced, that the book’s story is unlike any other you’ve ever heard or read. The novel follows Cornelius Washington Jr., a once-promising man from an upper-middle-class Black family, who now operates in a ‘90s drug-riddled New York City. Following tragedy after tragedy, mistake … Read more
[ad_1] Straw Dogs Of The Universe is a multigenerational epic packed with action and adversity— but its heroes are mere humans, who must rely on luck and grit for a chance to surmount the terror of being a Chinese migrant in 19th century California. Devalued by railroad bosses, enslaved by brothel owners, and hunted down … Read more
[ad_1] At Laura Hankin’s launch event for her new novel The Daydreams, about a reunion show of an early 2000s teen drama, a fan asked what she had found in her research about celebrities in the early aughts that surprised her. Laura talked about a 2009 Vanity Fair article that described Jessica Simpson as “looking … Read more
[ad_1] Bryan Washington sets the table in Family Meal with an abundance of ordinary details. His characters are busy with their hands, for instance: they might play with their thumbs, twirl a pen, throw the peace sign, or flick a cherry tomato. Fingers press into orifices and bodily fluids, press cell phone screens, and press … Read more