For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Aviva Rosner is many things: punk folk singer, contrarian, potty mouth, feminist, Jew, occasional vegan, fan of Amy Winehouse. She is also a woman approaching her mid-thirties who really wants a baby, but seems unable to have one—at least not without the intervention of assisted reproductive technology, to which she is philosophically and even … Read more
[ad_1] Is the world of our everyday reality the only world we live in, and the realest one we can apprehend? For McPhail, the protagonist of Jonathan Geltner’s novel Absolute Music, the world of fantasy—“the other world that has no name or too many names,” a “world behind the world”—is not only real but all … Read more
[ad_1] Welcome to another installment of a collaboration between the Chicago Review of Books and the Your Favorite Book podcast. Malavika Praseed, frequent CHIRB contributor and podcast host, seeks to talk to readers and writers about the books that light a fire inside them. What’s your favorite book and why? Our guest this week is … Read more
[ad_1] When I was seventeen I wrote what I considered my greatest work to date, a short story about an erratic high school pitcher coached and romanced by a groupie of the game. It felt highly original at the time and over the years I wrote and rewrote the story until I chucked it in … Read more
[ad_1] Award-winning journalist Sopan Deb made his fiction debut this July with Keya Das’s Second Act, a novel about a Bengali American family from suburban New Jersey. Shortly after coming out as gay to her family, the teenaged Keya Das dies in a car accident, leaving behind a play she and her girlfriend, Pamela, had … Read more
[ad_1] Lidia Yuknavitch knows misfits. Much of her writing concerns people—especially girls and women—on the margins, on the edges of experience, surviving, resilient, and magical, but never quite fitting in. Their trauma and suffering, and their regeneration through the act of storytelling, are reflective of Yuknavitch’s own: “Writing, making stories, drawing and painting and making … Read more
[ad_1] Hot enough out there for you? As we turn to the season of family BBQs, fireworks, and lounging by the pool, it’s understandable if some of our reading falls by the wayside. Adults don’t get participation stickers from their library programs, after all. But your TBR pile will still be there when you’re ready, … Read more
[ad_1] It’s a relief, sometimes, to read science fiction that is a straightforward political allegory. Tolkien’s famous “cordial dislike” for allegory is good guidance for creating believable, durable fantastic worlds, but there’s also a space and a need for works that have their sights set on current issues: less perennial, perhaps, but no less pertinent. … Read more
[ad_1] Lucy Bryan’s debut is the stunning collection of essays, In Between Places. An avid backpacker, Bryan ties together nature writing, the historical context of the places where she has lived and hiked, and the very personal story of Bryan’s divorce and her new love. Essays in the collection have appeared in Quarterly West, Nashville … Read more
[ad_1] In my parents’ house there is a shelf set aside for over a dozen yearbooks, stowed away and rarely seen or even thought about, and Shashi Bhat’s The Most Precious Substance on Earth brought to life that dusty shelf and its contents. The packaging of memory in glimpses. The fleeting impressions of former lives. … Read more