For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] It’s Not Nothing is the kind of novel that you can’t help but to savor. Every sentence, every turn of phrase is liable to catch you off guard—knock you off center—crack you up or kill you. In it, protagonist Rosemary Candwell shuffles in and out of bars, hourly jobs, and institutions, trying to grasp … Read more
[ad_1] In this heartfelt and bracing debut, Ramona Reeves renders the complex lives of the people of Mobile, Alabama, in all their pursuits and struggles. It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories presents a memorable account of a community through the intimate lens of their relationships, addictions, longings, and fears. Reeves excellently sets the … Read more
[ad_1] “And now,” writes George Prochnik in his new memoir, I Dream with Open Eyes, “I have left America because the country became alien to me, or because I believe that somewhere out there in the great beyond I might still find a place that sings home?” On that subtle “or” hangs an inquiry. After … Read more
[ad_1] When Joey is tasked with creating a self-portrait at art school, she decides to remake Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Slightly complicating matters is the fact that she’s never actually seen the movie, but Joey’s not one to be dissuaded. Over the course of the semester, readers follow Joey through deeply relatable stages of creation and … Read more
[ad_1] On weekends, Caroline Macon Fleischer totes her typewriter to street festivals to write poems on demand. She volunteers for the Chicago collective Poems While You Wait, which delivers poetry in unexpected places. Poetry is often condemned for being unlikeable, but the evidence to the contrary is in her sign-up list. Given topics that range … Read more
[ad_1] In Jonathan Escoffery’s debut short story collection, If I Survive You, a mother, a father, and their two sons move between Jamaica and Miami together, apart. Alone. At turns cruel and harsh, and tender and loving, this collection is a gut punch. It circles around race, home, family, masculinity, and the elusive, torturous American … Read more
[ad_1] Authors have spared few words when writing about the beauty and bruises of Chicago throughout its history as a literary muse. But for every story that leans into nostalgia and earnestness, rarely have we seen fiction that explores the more absurd aspects of the city and those who lead it. Nelson Algren once wrote … Read more
[ad_1] I’ve long been fascinated by the composition of our lives—how pains and traumas, tiny joys, and mundane moments collide with others’ experiences and are set against global catastrophes. I remember wishing I could find a novel that conveyed this, but I didn’t find one that quite did until Coco Picard’s debut novel, The Healing … Read more
[ad_1] Being an aspiring artist can feel like an uphill battle: you look around and notice the world in flames, both literal (climate change) and figurative (everything else), and it’s hard not to feel hopeless about the future. It makes sense that so many contemporary novels feature disaffected, disinvested millennials being apathetically carried on the … 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