For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] My first encounter with Elle Nash’s work was Animals Eat Each Other, and since then I’ve been hooked. Her short story collection, Nudes, broke my heart in the best way, and Gag Reflex (written in the style of a LiveJournal from 2005) delivers measured doses of eating disorder vulnerability amid tenuous teenage social structures. … Read more
[ad_1] By the time October rolls around, it’s no secret what we’re looking forward to. With the turn of the season and the falling leaves comes plenty of opportunities for cozy blankets, a warm cup of tea, and a book that will scare you into sleeping with all the lights off. Okay, so maybe horror … Read more
[ad_1] “Go back to Beatrice, the real Beatrice,” urges Beatriz, a graceful yet unassuming forty-something patron of the Sala Mampou concert hall who lives with her husband and son in Barcelona. “What was it that made Dante choose her over all other women? Or go back to Mary. What was it about Mary full of … Read more
[ad_1] Lauren Groff’s new novel, The Vaster Wilds, is supposed to make you feel cold, hungry, thirsty, nauseated, sore, febrile, scared, awed, appalled, relieved, confused, hopeful, and tired of it all. The sensations are better effected than the emotions, which is the other way round from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a novel cited by Lauren Groff … Read more
[ad_1] It’s fittingly difficult to pin down Colleen Burner’s debut novel, or novella, Sister Golden Calf. At once fragmented and expansive, set in the recognizable territory of New Mexico’s highways but also infused with magical realism, the book resists categorization. The protagonists, sisters Kit and Gloria, know a thing or two about capturing the ineffable: … Read more
[ad_1] We’re Safe When We’re Alone, Nghiem Tran’s new novella, is dreamlike and imaginative, thrusting us into the world of ghosts and memories. Every character is given a familial label instead of a name, such as Son, the young protagonist, who is forced to adjust outside of his isolation and out into this ominous world. … Read more
[ad_1] Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City examines drag performance from the 19th Century through the contemporary era, from broad cultural trends to the individual experiences of performers. Elyssa Maxx Goodman dives into language, legalities, and the ebb and flow of perceptions. I first met Goodman a year ago … Read more
[ad_1] Rarely do you read a novel that makes you want to get up and finish that essay you’ve let sit idle in your word document for months. Even more rarely do you read a novel that reminds you why you became a writer in the first place. Nathan Hill’s debut, The Nix, took the … Read more
[ad_1] I dance to save myself, and find / Swimming in sweat, it’s in our common breath I fly. Paul Verlaine On the morning of June 13, 2016, I woke up to a text reading “did you hear the news?” The day before, Omar Mateen had shot up the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 … Read more
[ad_1] The Midwestern town of Ephrem, Illinois, is a place that exists only in author Janice Deal’s imagination. But in her beautifully woven linked story collection Strange Attractors: The Ephrem Stories, the town and its residents are so completely realized I found myself poking around Google maps, trying to determine which actual place it might … Read more