For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Ani Gjika’s An Unruled Body follows the author from the turbulent final years of Albanian communism through an era of transition and on to a somewhat fated path to Boston—as a matter of fact, it is her “grandmother’s faith that gets [her] family to the U.S.” In this memoir, the passage from girlhood to … Read more
[ad_1] Sadie and Alice have been best friends since high school and now live on opposite ends of California. When budding actress Alice comes back to the Bay Area to perform in a basement-theater production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, she expects reliable Sadie to attend opening night. But her friend has special plans of … Read more
[ad_1] The debut novel Wings of Red is autofiction penned by educator and mentor James W. Jennings that centers learning as a way forward, but not necessarily straight forward. Middle and high school students, friends, family, subway riders, “scribes,” the rich, and the poor exchange casual but poignant lessons with our nomadic protagonist on every … Read more
[ad_1] Walk into any pharmacy in America and you can find eyeliner. That’s true of any halfway decent grocery store as well. I haven’t looked, but I imagine even the 24/7 bodega on the corner near my apartment would have more than one option. There is a ubiquity to eyeliner that is easy to overlook, … Read more
[ad_1] Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel, The Vulnerables, uses the 2020 pandemic as an inciting incident for an examination of the uncertainties and vulnerabilities that we experience during catastrophes as well as in our quotidian lives. The narrative is deceptively simple: a professor offers her apartment to a healthcare worker during the early days of the … Read more
[ad_1] In 1948, Alba de Céspedes wrote to her friend, the acclaimed writer Natalia Ginzburg, of a specific kind of affliction that could befall the women of their time. They called it a “well,” a “terrible melancholy” that women—still mostly confined to the domestic sphere in the immediate aftermath of WWII, not yet considered equal … Read more
[ad_1] Zuska Kepplová is a Slovak author, editor, and political commentator for the Slovakian daily newspaper SME. In 2011, her book Buchty švabachom was published in her home country, winning the Ján Johanides Prize and becoming shortlisted for the Anasoft Litera Prize, Slovakia’s most prestigious literary prize. Now, twelve years later, Buchty švabachom is available … Read more
[ad_1] Paul Auster’s best novels balance intricate and absorbing stories, with deconstructions of the art of narrative in a manner that rarely detracts from the flow or fun of the narrative itself. Unlike the machinations of many metafiction authors, the games Auster plays with storytelling never seem to get in the way of the stories … Read more
[ad_1] As a child, amidst familial turbulence, I prayed to my mouse plush toy, asking existential questions through wordless telepathy. My family was not religionless—we were Buddhists who attended temple on major holidays—but I found comfort in confiding in this stuffed animal that I associated with wisdom of its own. I understand now, after reading … Read more
[ad_1] We like to think we are masters of our bodies and minds and, for the most part, we possess total agency and comprehension of our thoughts and actions. This assumption is embedded so thoroughly in our society that it seems unnecessary to even observe it. But that is exactly what the legendary Brazilian writer … Read more