For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” If there’s any book pulsing with this truth, spoken by Bob Marley about the power of music, it is Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush—a book which one can expect to be astonished by from its musicality, fierce passion, and powerful originality. When … Read more
[ad_1] Chana Porter, author of the acclaimed speculative novel The Seep, has returned in full force to her imaginative worldbuilding and incisive cultural commentary that made that book so successful. In The Thick and the Lean, she explores a religious society where delicious food is taboo, and the act of eating is as inelegant and … 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] Emily Tesh’s World-Fantasy-Award-winning Silver In the Wood and its sequel Drowned Country are deeply lovely books: quiet, yearning, and full of ancient straining curses and redemption. Tesh turning her novelistic sights to space opera is an event that should make every speculative fiction reader take note: Some Desperate Glory is a masterful take on … 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] When I’m excited about a book I skip the back cover blurb and jump right in. Why would I need to read a description of National Book Award finalist Alejandro Varela’s new story collection, The People Who Report More Stress, when I already know how much I love his work? And short stories by … Read more
[ad_1] StoryStudio Chicago is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year! The organization first opened its doors in 2003 with just four students. Today, StoryStudio has become an important literary institution in Chicago and across the country, welcoming more than 1,200 writers each year to dedicated writing classes, readings, events, festivals, and more. At its heart, … Read more
[ad_1] Joe Milan Jr.’s debut novel, The All-American, follows Bucky Yi as he comes of age through some of the most harrowing events a teenager can witness: the poverty of his hometown, the near death of his only male role model, deportation, conscription into a foreign military, and the violence and madness resulting from isolation, … Read more
[ad_1] In the first story of Andrew Porter’s latest collection, The Disappeared, the narrator is a guest at a house party in Austin, Texas. He is middle-aged with a wife and two kids, and it’s his first time seeing his old friends together for some time. While they sit around a fire pit smoking cigarettes … Read more
[ad_1] In Elizabeth McKenzie’s rollicking new novel Dog of the North, a woman named Penny is contacted by a man named Burt Lampey, who claims to be her grandmother Dr. Pincer’s accountant. When Burt asks Penny to help him evacuate her grandmother from her home in Santa Barbara, Penny agrees to— she’s recently suffered a … Read more