For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] When a group of 89 protesters calling themselves Indians of All Tribes (IAT) occupied the remnants of Alcatraz Island in 1969, the former prison that sits on federally annexed land had been abandoned by the U.S. government for nearly six years. The IAT cited the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie as justification for the … Read more
[ad_1] A novel Kate Zambreno reads during the first year of the pandemic opens with a description of an apartment walled by windows on all sides. The novel’s protagonist has recently separated from her husband, and she takes this sun-struck apartment for her three-year-old-daughter. Zambreno, a Guggenheim fellow, professor of writing at Columbia University, and … Read more
[ad_1] Of all the people who ever lived, only a tiny proportion have their names remembered by history. And even when someone’s name is remembered, celebrated, taught in the history books, the knowledge of who that person actually was—not just a name we recognize—is elusive. This is particularly true of women in history, and even … Read more
[ad_1] The tale of separation of true self from true home, the tragic story of the immigrant divided not only in terms of geography and culture but also of perception and identity, has long served literature’s appetite for conflict. One only has to think of lost Odysseus to realize that terrestrial dislocation functions supremely as … Read more
[ad_1] During the year I lived in France, I read Annie Ernaux insatiably. For months, I returned to the library to get her books, one copy after another. Faced with the loneliness of living abroad, I threw myself into reading. Into Ernaux. I liked the way she juxtaposed a detached style with intimate stories. Those … Read more
[ad_1] In her debut short story collection Site Fidelity, Claire Boyles has tapped into a largely untouched goldmine of stories about environmental issues in the American West, and the people involved in the often-lonely fights for their jobs, their land and their resources on a changing planet. By writing this book, Boyles provides a peek … Read more
[ad_1] Releasing a debut novel is always a fraught endeavor, and in a pandemic, it’s even more so. But the luckiest debut novelists see buzz building for their books well in advance of publication. Right now, that buzz belongs to Sarah Penner and her inventive, compelling historical novel, The Lost Apothecary. It’s been named among … Read more
[ad_1] Deep in the forests of eastern Poland, the town of Kreskol lies forgotten. Through an improbable combination of bureaucratic negligence, unfriendly relations with other Jewish towns, and favorable geography, the Jews of Kreskol — the world’s last shtetl — have escaped the great onslaughts of the twentieth century (the Great War; the Holocaust; Polish … Read more