For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Full disclosure first: I worked with Jen St. Jude at Chicago Review of Books for a number of years. Like many of the creative professionals here, I knew they were at work on a book though I didn’t know many of the details. Reading If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come first offers the pleasure of seeing … Read more
[ad_1] Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water opens with a map of the state of Kerala. All its regions, ranging from the mountainous Wayanad to the urban Cochin to the southernmost point of Trivandrum. It is akin to any detailed map in an epic fantasy, and in many respects that is the narrative Verghese has … Read more
[ad_1] The whiplash changes that mark our days have made us ripe for new forms of expression that can help us see our way through. Even as 2021 saw the Black Lives Matter movement attain global impact, Confederate and colonialist monuments come down, and institutions grapple with ways to respond appropriately to calls for equality, … Read more
[ad_1] It’s an odd thing, about trends. A trend seems to take on a life of its own, morphing and consuming its way through the zeitgeist. How do they begin, why do they die? There’s something of Orwell’s groupthink, removed (usually) of its menace and totalitarian bent, but nonetheless reflective of the base human need … Read more
[ad_1] In Nicholas Binge’s Ascension, a mountain of nearly unimaginable size appears suddenly in the middle of the ocean, its sides plunging steeply into the sea, its mysterious peak looming unattainably in the clouds, nearly 10,000 feet higher than Mount Everest. The mountain stuns physicist Harold Tunmore, not just because of its sudden materialization, but … Read more
[ad_1] What does it mean to love the art but recoil at the artist? Claire Dederer, author of the acclaimed memoirs Poser and Love and Trouble, breathes new life into this question in her stirring and revelatory book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. Building on her viral Paris Review essay, “What Do We Do with the … Read more
[ad_1] Growing up in the 1980s, I could not escape Fiddler on the Roof. I sat through professional theatrical productions as well as amateur productions at our local public school—my brother’s girlfriend played Tzeitel—and the private Jewish day school I attended through eighth grade. I watched the movie at home, in school, and at Jewish … Read more
[ad_1] With In the Lives of Puppets, Lambda Literary Award-winning TJ Klune offers speculative fiction and young adult readers a fresh new tale. By loosely adapting The Adventures of Pinnochio, Klune tells the endearing story of a father creating life under unorthodox circumstances and a boy on a dangerous journey to a far-off land and … Read more
[ad_1] Chicagoans know that you can’t officially say goodbye to winter until May arrives, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that we’re thrilled to welcome in the start of the new month! With summer clearly in our view, it’s time to start thinking about your warm weather reading plans. We’re talking books that you’ll … Read more
[ad_1] When I was young, I loved The Bachelor. I was enthralled by the unnecessary conflict, envious of the contestants’ thin bodies, and desperate for the love stories that unfolded over the course of weeks. Inevitably, the couples would fall apart less than two months after the reunion special, so I’d never revisit seasons—all the … Read more