For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] In fall 2020, Zito Madu moved to Venice for work. He nervously left his parents back at their home in Detroit, and entered a city usually packed with tourists and now comparably deserted, shops opening and closing at unexpected times, the curving streets often empty except for him. Within the labyrinth of an eerie … Read more
[ad_1] Jonathan Corcoran has been writing about West Virginia and Appalachia since before I met him. We were both attending graduation programs at Rutgers University–Newark. After graduating, we continued meeting semi-regularly for an informal writing workshop where we would critique each other’s work and gossip about writers we knew. It was here, nine years ago, … Read more
[ad_1] Where are your roots? How does language—that which you speak and that which speaks through you, if not literally then ancestrally—shift your identity and place in the world at large, and in your own community? Diego Báez’s collection Yaguareté White is an assured and intelligent debut that is lyrical and powerful, sharply examining such … Read more
[ad_1] Chicago Review of Books is excited to feature the cover reveal of Nada Samih-Rotondo’s debut memoir, All Water Has Perfect Memory (out September 2023 with Jaded Ibis Press). The blurb, author bio, and quotes that follow are all courtesy of the book’s publicist, Addie Tsai/ Levee Break Lit: “Life changed forever for six year … Read more
[ad_1] Chicago Review of Books is excited to feature the cover reveal of Nada Samih-Rotondo’s debut memoir, All Water Has a Perfect Memory (out September 2023 with Jaded Ibis Press). The following blurb, author bio, and following quotes are all courtesy of the book’s publicist, Addie Tsai/ Levee Break Lit: “Life changed forever for six … Read more
[ad_1] Salomea Künstler, known as Mamie and all of eleven, has just arrived in California with her parents and grandfather when Cathleen Schine’s Künstlers in Paradise begins. An orange tree grows in the garden of their new home in Santa Monica, and in the “odd, shining fog” of their first morning, they ate oranges, “as … Read more
[ad_1] Lines suggest beginnings and endings, possibilities and limits, differences and connections. Lines can be made by humans. Hand-drawn borders on maps mark one sovereign’s subjects from another’s, their consequences cascading down generations in languages spoken and traditions shared. Lines can be made by nonhumans, too. The horizon stretches across the sea. Waves reach up … Read more
[ad_1] The Hero journeys across the desert to capture The Thief Of Memory and retrieve her stolen memories. What she finds in the end may destroy her. Miquon set off across the endless desert to catch the Thief of Memory. On her belt she carried a knife made of ice, to freeze … Read more
[ad_1] In an interview with Rappahannock Review, Holly Pelesky described the process of planning to write a memoir during her MFA program: “We discussed what it was I had to say and in doing so, recognized I stored my memories in objects or places—tangible places.” The resulting book, Cleave, is a memoir told through the … Read more
[ad_1] Scientists are still studying exactly how our nerves’ collective activities transcribe our experiences into memories and, while a noble study, a certain question persists: isn’t memory so intoxicating because it’s so elusive? Memory’s pliability makes it a rich playing ground in fiction; it can manipulate and subvert what characters think they know and is … Read more