For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] On weekends, Caroline Macon Fleischer totes her typewriter to street festivals to write poems on demand. She volunteers for the Chicago collective Poems While You Wait, which delivers poetry in unexpected places. Poetry is often condemned for being unlikeable, but the evidence to the contrary is in her sign-up list. Given topics that range … Read more
[ad_1] Welcome to another installment of a collaboration between the Chicago Review of Books and the Your Favorite Book podcast. Malavika Praseed, frequent CHIRB contributor and podcast host, seeks to talk to readers and writers about the books that light a fire inside them. What’s your favorite book and why? Our guest is Joe Meno, … Read more
[ad_1] How many times have you walked on a beach? Generally, the experience is pleasurably common: you feel the sand between your toes, you pick up seashells, you hold hands with a loved one while you watch the sunset, you feel a light ocean breeze on your cheeks. What is uncommon, however, is if you … Read more
[ad_1] Toño the Infallible, a novel by the Colombian writer Evelio Rosero, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean and Victor Meadowcroft, is a shockingly twisted character study of one man’s malice towards society. Rosero explores the depths of remorseless hatred and how it grows when there is no balancing opposition to stop it. Set … Read more
[ad_1] As I sit down to write this, approximately one third of Pakistan is underwater due to devastating floods from monsoon rains. Before going on, I must ask you, reader, to sit for a moment and try to ponder what it means for a third of a country to be underwater. Over 1300 people are … Read more
[ad_1] In Jonathan Escoffery’s debut short story collection, If I Survive You, a mother, a father, and their two sons move between Jamaica and Miami together, apart. Alone. At turns cruel and harsh, and tender and loving, this collection is a gut punch. It circles around race, home, family, masculinity, and the elusive, torturous American … Read more
[ad_1] I met Kathleen Rooney soon after moving to Chicago in 2012. Since I grew up in Dallas where women don fresh blond highlights even in their babies’ birth announcements, Kathleen was the most radical person I’d ever met. Who was this intellectual who didn’t want kids, was decidedly going gray, and was a founding … Read more
[ad_1] School is officially back in session, so what better time to hit the books? September often signals both the end of summer and the start of something new, which makes it the perfect time to try something new. With this month filled with exciting releases from debut authors and literary stars alike, we’re here … Read more
[ad_1] Summer brings warm weather and even hotter new releases, especially in Chicago. If you’re looking for a book to nestle up with as you dig your toes in the sand along Lake Michigan or another distant beach, our neighborhood authors are here to please. Here are some of the best Chicago-inspired fiction, poetry, nonfiction, … Read more
[ad_1] Stories about story-telling itself always risk a kind of self-congratulatory triteness. As lovers of narrative, we’re already aware of the power of story, and hopefully self-aware enough to see how stories change our perception of ourselves, of the world; breathless paeans to the medium itself generally leave me, pardon the pun, uninspired. Tautology bordering … Read more