For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Sitting in his family’s ancestral cemetery, Saša Stanišić ponders a snake in a sorb-apple tree. The town grows emptier each year, and soon it will be left only to the horned vipers to keep watch over the sheep. He thinks of the dragons said to make their homes in the peaks of the hills … Read more
[ad_1] Lisa Harding’s second novel, Bright Burning Things, follows single mother Sonya Moriarity, as she slides in the abyss of alcohol abuse, enters a recovery program, and attempts to rebuild her life. The emotional center of the novel is Sonya’s love for her son, Tommy, and her internal struggle to be the mother he needs. … Read more
[ad_1] Van Gogh’s self-portraits are among his most famous and beloved works; presidential autobiographies fly off the shelves when they inexorably appear a year out of office. For the novelist, however, no such allowances are made. A common refrain from that amorphous, ominous entity public opinion seems to be that novelists are far too interested … Read more
[ad_1] Neel Patel’s Tell Me How to Be opens with both narrators spent: Akash and his mother, Renu, are weary and anxious. Decisions they made years ago have grown burdensome, seemingly inescapable: “No one ever told me that happiness was like a currency: that when it goes, it goes.” This is from Patel’s short story … Read more
[ad_1] The persecution of “fallen women” is a well-documented phenomenon in Western history, stemming back to the story of the first biblical woman, Eve. Yet records of girls and women shunned into Magdalene laundries throughout Ireland have long been hidden and destroyed. Such institutions were run as late as 1996, usually by Roman Catholic orders … Read more
[ad_1] The persecution of “fallen women” is a well-documented phenomenon in Western history, stemming back to the story of the first biblical woman, Eve. Yet records of girls and women shunned into Magdalene laundries throughout Ireland have long been hidden and destroyed. Such institutions were run as late as 1996, usually by Roman Catholic orders … Read more
[ad_1] Jenny Holzer’s art demands to be seen. For those unfamiliar with her work, Holzer is a neo-conceptual American artist known for delivering ideas through words in public spaces, such as projections on buildings, and benches etched with truisms. But in Alfaguara Prize-winning author Carla Guelfenbein’s new novel, One in Me I Never Loved translated … Read more
[ad_1] There are some stories that seem as if the only goal is to go as big as possible. Globe trotting adventures, dastardly villains, and always a bigger and brighter battle just over the horizon. Through stories like these, it can be easy to overlook the weirdness that happens even in your own community. In … Read more
[ad_1] Well, readers, we’ve made it to the end of another year. As the holiday scramble commences and the cold winds blow, we hope you’re taking time to care for yourself along with your loved ones, and are settling down before a warm fire with a good book, or two. December is usually a quieter … Read more
[ad_1] An interesting, if somewhat recondite, corner of the great novelistic universe is the study of literary ancestry:where a work comes from, what it grows from, and what grows from it—be it in theme, perspective, narrative, or technique. By studying the descendants and antecedents of a given novel, one can learn much about how the … Read more