review – Page 34 – Reads A Lot

Volumes Bookscafe’s Rebecca George on Backlists, Sales, and Why Authors Shouldn’t Call a Bookstore on a Weekend – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 31, 2023 by Editorial Staff

[ad_1] We’re excited to introduce The Chicago Writers Podcast, a Stories Matter Foundation podcast series about the latest Chicago literary news, releases, and recommendations! Check back every month as host Dan Finnen interviews authors, storytellers, literary professionals, and more about the craft and business of writing. In this episode, Dan talks with Rebecca George, co-owner … Read more

Lives Lost and Re-found in “The Faraway World” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 31, 2023 by Ryan Asmussen

[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

a Conversation with Lisa Cupolo – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 30, 2023 by Tryphena Yeboah

[ad_1] Lisa Cupolo’s debut book, Have Mercy on Us, won the W.S. Porter Prize for short story collections. The ten stories are a rich exploration of people continually seeking, wrestling, and walking the line of great tension in their relation to others, and also within themselves. There is an abiding sense of hope and mystery as … Read more

Cultivating the Arts of Life in “The Guest Lecture” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 27, 2023 by Dan Kubis

[ad_1] When Martin Riker’s novel The Guest Lecture opens, its main character, Abby, is lying awake in a hotel bed, trying not to wake her husband and daughter, anxiously planning a lecture on the economist John Maynard Keynes that she’s scheduled to give the next day. When the novel ends, Abby is lying awake in … Read more

Living Between Lyric in “After Sappho” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 26, 2023 by Connor Harrison

[ad_1] Reworking, adaptation, reconsideration. There is always an appeal to mining the Ancient Greek poets for a timely retelling. Most recently—with the likes of Madeleine Miller’s Circe and Pat Barker’s two Trojan novels, The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy—there has been an interest in shifting the balance by gifting the often … Read more

The Price of Survival in “Judas Goat” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 25, 2023 by Mandana Chaffa

[ad_1] Already a finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, as well as a co-host of The Poet Salon podcast, it’s hard to believe that Judas Goat is Gabrielle Bates’s debut collection. The two-score poems within display a sensitive and assured voice and a candid exploration of human relationships and the … Read more

The Return of “The Red-Headed Pilgrim” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 24, 2023 by Brock Kingsley

[ad_1] I’d like to ask Kevin Maloney if he’s familiar with “Return of the Grievous Angel,” the Gram Parsons’ song with themes of wandering, life on the road, and a kind of longing that leads to an inevitable return. I kept hearing this song in my head as I read Maloney’s novel The Red-Headed Pilgrim, … Read more

An Interview with Aleksandar Hemon on “The World and All That It Holds” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 23, 2023 by RSDeeren

[ad_1] Everyone has those moments in their lives that didn’t turn out the way they thought they might. Whether by making the wrong choice or saying the wrong thing or being impacted by chance, time and the world continue to move further and further from that moment, and the human life impacted at that exact … Read more

An Interview with Iliana Regan on “Fieldwork” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 20, 2023 by Elizabeth McNeill

[ad_1] With the publication of her first memoir, Burn the Place, Michelin-starred chef Iliana Regan carved a space for herself between the culinary world and the literary world. She was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award, the first food writer recognized since Julia Child. The New Yorker distinguished Burn the Place as one of “the great memoirs of addiction, … Read more

The Space Between Certainties in “The Sense of Wonder” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJanuary 19, 2023 by Rachel León

[ad_1] No book has influenced how I approach book reviews more than Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses. The book challenges the lens many readers use, one shaped by white, Western values, and is a call not only to make space for diverse storytelling, but to evaluate it on its own terms. And, … Read more