For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Mostly set around Atlanta, with excursions to Louisiana, Stephen Kearse’s Liquid Snakes is a psychotropic crime thriller, a revenge story, and a bitter invective against environmental racism. It’s also an immensely engaging read—clever and nimble in its narration, pointed in its critiques—with a chorus of interesting voices and arresting images. Although the novel is … Read more
[ad_1] The Translator’s Voice is a new monthly column from Ian J. Battaglia here at the Chicago Review of Books, dedicated to global literature and the translators who work tirelessly and too often thanklessly to bring these books to the English-reading audience. Subscribe to his newsletter to get notified of new editions as well as … Read more
[ad_1] One morning, you receive a call and are told to board a flight. Your bags are already packed, a car has been sent to pick you up. When you’re hungry, you find food has been packed for you as well. It tastes like nothing. Perhaps someone is dead. This is how the narrator of … Read more
[ad_1] The work of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Steven Millhauser demands to be read seriously since, at its often disarming core, it is about serious matters: time, memory, seeing the world as it is (reminiscent of Wallace Stevens’s “One must have a mind of winter to regard / the frost…”), the painful, inevitable divisions between human … Read more
[ad_1] The Translator’s Voice is a new monthly column from Ian J. Battaglia here at the Chicago Review of Books, dedicated to global literature and the translators who work tirelessly and too often thanklessly to bring these books to the English-reading audience. Subscribe to his newsletter to get notified of new editions as well as … Read more
[ad_1] Kyle Dillon Hertz’s The Lookback Window starts in paradise. Or rather, it starts in a clothing-optional resort in South Florida. I found it apt to open the book here, a space of artificial beauty and peacefulness built directly on a foundation of unspoken terrors, all of which are fated to be erased by the … Read more
[ad_1] In avery r. young’s words, these are “10 Chicago, books, art, music that I dig. People do what they want to do. Check them out or miss out.” We couldn’t agree more. The Curtis album By Curtis Mayfield Curtom Records, 1970 It’s like the funk of Cottage Grove found its way to The Lyric … Read more
[ad_1] The debut novel of David Connor, Oh God, The Sun Goes, takes audiences on a cerebral ride—both literally and figuratively—journeying within a story that could sit comfortably on the shelf of multiple genres. From mystery to science fiction, to biological place fiction (if such a thing exists), Connor flexes his creativity and cognitive neuroscience … Read more
[ad_1] Reports of the death of Donald “Sully” Sullivan are somewhat exaggerated. In Somebody’s Fool, Richard Russo’s terrific new book in his North Bath, NY series, characters talk to Sully’s grave, look for the dead man to join them at the bar, and, when they are in a bind, they ask—maybe against their better judgment— What … Read more
[ad_1] A good short story can feel like a mystical experience, or leave a reader remorseful, longing. Kate Doyle’s debut is a collection of such stories, linked in subtle ways, that perfectly encapsulate what it’s like to reflect on your youth while you’re still in it. The young women in these stories are on the … Read more