For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] The first striking feature of The Books of Jacob—the latest book from Olga Tokarczuk and translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft—is its length. The review copy I was mailed flopped around awkwardly in my hands in a manner reminiscent of a fish’s corpse; for the months that I carried it around, I felt … Read more
[ad_1] “Anyway, a proper pandemic might be quite good for the environment,” says a character in Sarah Moss’s 2009 debut novel, Cold Earth. “Depopulation from the plague did wonders for medieval fauna and flora.” More than a decade later, The Fell—which was published in the UK in 2021—explores that “proper pandemic” scenario through the lives … Read more
[ad_1] “Branding.” Authors hear that word a lot: what’s your brand, how are you branding yourself, does X fit with your brand? Over the course of a writing career, many authors focus on a particular genre, era, or setting to brand their work. But even when you’re perfectly happy in your genre and your brand—like … Read more
[ad_1] My knowledge of Tamil is limited to my father’s voice. It is not his first language but it’s the one, to him, forever linked to literature. I recognize the lilt and sounds of the Tamil language but am unable to read it written, or even parse out individual spoken words. It is with gratitude … Read more
[ad_1] Some people live without needing literature. They summer in vacation homes, host parties, marry sweethearts with perfect smiles, bear children who will become not followers but influencers, and pass peacefully in their sleep with smooth faces. The rest of us read books. We chase romance at bonfires and dive bars, trudge through blizzards for … Read more
[ad_1] Poet and curator Cheryl Boyce-Taylor returns with her sixth collection of poems, We Are Not Wearing Helmets, a tribute to the women who have lifted her and an acknowledgment of the grief she still feels after losing her late son Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor of A Tribe Called Quest. She gets political in this … Read more
[ad_1] When we first meet Mira, the protagonist of Sheila Heti’s stunning, elegiac new novel Pure Colour, the universe is a roughly hewn first draft destined for the rubbish bin. Mira has just been accepted to study at the American Academy of American Critics. She works at a lamp store surrounded by bijoux glass. Her … Read more
[ad_1] Marlon James’ drive to explore African mythology—beyond boyhood Anansi stories in Jamaica—required a “fact-finding mission to find my own history.” In a New York Times interview, he expresses his desire to create an “electrifying” story: his Dark Star trilogy. Assuming multiple roles—anthropologist, archeologist, historian, skeptic, and scholar of religion—to develop the shapeshifters, vampires, and … Read more
[ad_1] As I approach middle age, my brain has started to shrivel into the pickled nostalgia that’s the birthright of every generation, and because I attended high school during the ’90s, I’ve relived fantasies of youth by continually playing the music that was popular then, even if I didn’t actually listen to that same music … Read more
[ad_1] Refreshingly, sociologist Danielle J. Lindemann, author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us isn’t interested in asking whether or not reality TV is “really real.” This question, she says, misses the point. The genre demonstrates that “all reality is socially constructed.” Unscripted programming plays a role in shaping the narratives we hold … Read more