For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] The protagonist of Vengeance is Mine, (translated by Jordan Stump from La Vengeance m’appartient), Marie NDiaye’s twelfth novel, is known to the reader only by her title and surname. A French lawyer, she is Maître Susane, and at the novel’s opening, she has recently opened a struggling law practice. She drives an ancient car … Read more
[ad_1] I never had the kind of quintessential Best Friend™ like you see in movies. One that surprised me with a latte after a breakup and knew me so well they could finish my sentences. My friendships tended to be less consistent and more complicated. And so when Lane Moore, author of How to Be … Read more
[ad_1] On the “wine-dark” Aegean seas of Homer’s Odyssey, the merchants of Tyre and Sidon, of Byblos and Carthage, put out from their home ports—busy hives of activity crammed with merchants from all over the ancient world—in order to, like free-flowing dolphins, traverse the waterways of the Mediterranean. This ease of connection was not only … Read more
[ad_1] It is evident from the very first pages of Ray Shell’s Iced, that the book’s story is unlike any other you’ve ever heard or read. The novel follows Cornelius Washington Jr., a once-promising man from an upper-middle-class Black family, who now operates in a ‘90s drug-riddled New York City. Following tragedy after tragedy, mistake … Read more
[ad_1] Straw Dogs Of The Universe is a multigenerational epic packed with action and adversity— but its heroes are mere humans, who must rely on luck and grit for a chance to surmount the terror of being a Chinese migrant in 19th century California. Devalued by railroad bosses, enslaved by brothel owners, and hunted down … Read more
[ad_1] At Laura Hankin’s launch event for her new novel The Daydreams, about a reunion show of an early 2000s teen drama, a fan asked what she had found in her research about celebrities in the early aughts that surprised her. Laura talked about a 2009 Vanity Fair article that described Jessica Simpson as “looking … Read more
[ad_1] Bryan Washington sets the table in Family Meal with an abundance of ordinary details. His characters are busy with their hands, for instance: they might play with their thumbs, twirl a pen, throw the peace sign, or flick a cherry tomato. Fingers press into orifices and bodily fluids, press cell phone screens, and press … Read more
[ad_1] The Head and the Heart are an indie rock band who are not one of the subjects of Peter Coviello in his recent collection of essays, Is There God after Prince? Dispatches from an Age of Last Things. The assemblage reads more like a set of collected works than an essay collection with a … Read more
[ad_1] My young adult novel, Wolfpack, wasn’t working and I was struggling to pinpoint why. For previous projects—including my debut and a number of manuscripts destined to live out their days in my desk drawer—there had been obvious issues: a word count closer to a novella that a novel, glaring plot holes, a complete absence … Read more
[ad_1] There’s something special about a novel that feels timeless, somehow older than itself from the moment it’s published. Such is the case with Daniel Gumbiner’s sophomore novel, Fire in the Canyon, which follows the recently reunited Hecht family and their surrounding community of California winemakers through the height of wildfire season. A big part … Read more