For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] In Christina Cooke’s debut novel, Broughtupsy, a young woman, Akúa, whose family has been unmoored and adrift since the death of her mother, is on a mission. Akúa’s father moves the family first to Texas, then to Vancouver, but Akúa’s older sister, Tamika, travels back to Jamaica, leaving Akúa and their younger brother Bryson … Read more
[ad_1] Kate Kennedy is a woman who finds herself at a crossroads. Growing up under fourth wave feminism, she still felt the undeniable siren song of quintessential womanhood past: join a sorority, get married, have a kid. “[There are] the traditional values we held growing up versus the opportunities that greeted us once we did,” … Read more
[ad_1] The room was too warm, but that’s not why I was sweating. I was nervous. Deeply, deeply nervous. It had been a long time since I sat in a creative writing classroom, yet here I was. It was early June 2023 and I hadn’t written fiction in years. My Imposter Syndrome had been growing … Read more
[ad_1] Abbott Kahler’s debut thriller, Where You End, follows the twenty-two-year-old Bird sisters after a car accident leaves Kat with no memories save the name and face of her twin, Jude; remnants of the unique language they have shared since childhood; and an unexplained ability to defend herself. The story is comprised of Kat’s perspective … Read more
[ad_1] Very early in my spiritual education, I was taught by my elders to be cautious about making claims. One reason for this caution—particularly when it comes to making claims about oneself—is that claims are often rooted in the ego. They betray the fact that so much of what we claim about ourselves can be … Read more
[ad_1] Termush, a 1967 novella by Sven Holm (translated into English by Sylvia Clayton), is an understated accounting of events at a luxury resort that has been transformed into a safe haven for a select group of survivors of a nuclear disaster. While concerns about wealth inequality and post-apocalyptic survival remained relevant throughout the Cold … Read more
[ad_1] You never can tell where life will take you. When I met Beth Uznis Johnson at an MFA alumni event for Queens University of Charlotte, she lived in Michigan, and I lived in Chicago. Who’d have guessed that a decade later, she’d live a few blocks from me, and we’d meet for Monday writing … Read more
[ad_1] When the Mexica emperor Moctezuma sent his emissaries to report on the Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés in 1519, neither side understood what the other was saying. It was only through a chain of translations between a Franciscan friar named Aguilar who spoke some Mayan and a young Nahuatl woman given to Cortés as … Read more
[ad_1] First thing, let me get something out of the way: I’ve known İnci Atrek, author of Holiday Country, for a long time. We went to Wellesley College together and both took an especially memorable travel writing class our senior year. I saw the earliest glimmers of Holiday Country in the personal essays Atrek shared … Read more
[ad_1] We live in a golden age of the armchair detective, a person who aims to help solve a real-life mystery without the official qualifications for such work. Global fascination with true crime has led to an explosion of documentaries, websites, online forums, and more; a 2023 Pew Research Center study1 found that true crime … Read more