For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] In a time of isolation and loss, literature keeps us connected. It also helps us to escape our reality; dream a little bigger, hope a little harder. We asked our staff and contributors to send us their most anticipated books for 2022. From experimental short stories to treasured novels in translation: There is much … Read more
[ad_1] For me, as a musician, one mark of a great short story collection is when it operates somewhat like a great symphony: cast in distinct movements, moving through different moods, tonalities and orchestrations, but at some base level—whether heard or simply felt—motivically and thematically cohesive. Manywhere, Morgan Thomas’ expansive and expressive debut collection, is … Read more
[ad_1] John Darnielle’s latest novel, Devil House, is a fascinating hybrid of gothic horror, the true crime format, and something stranger. It’s keenly attuned to how people change, how we bring our pasts with us, how the spaces we enter shape us, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes violently. The novel is intensely (if circuitously) invested in the … Read more
[ad_1] At a virtual reading hosted by Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida, moderated by writer Chantel Acevedo, David Sanchez is asked a question about the role of nature in his fiction, particularly the lush and gasping sort you find in South Florida, of which he often writes. Sanchez thinks about it for a … Read more
[ad_1] As of January 25, 2022, the coronavirus has killed more than 800,000 Americans. More will die before it is brought under control. For frontline workers in particular, the pandemic has been a dangerous, stressful period, characterized by what seem to be difficult choices but are often not choices at all. They continue to return … Read more
[ad_1] In many ways, we are our experiences. We wake up, experience something, react to it, consider it, form thoughts on it, go to sleep, and wake up again. This continuity of thought—memory connecting point to point to point—is one of the ways we as people come to define ourselves, according to John Locke. Novels, … Read more
[ad_1] What is there to say when you are confronted by a dying loved one in the midst of a pandemic? Most of us have more than likely had to answer that question more frequently, courtesy of COVID-19. Sequoia Nagamatsu’s debut novel, How High We Go In The Dark, tackles this issue, through a different … Read more
[ad_1] Chicago-born author Lorraine Hansberry was one of the most significant playwrights of the twentieth century. In 1959, her work A Raisin in the Sun became the first play written by a Black woman to be performed on Broadway. Its brilliance has never dimmed: the play continues to be performed regularly on both professional and … Read more
[ad_1] What truly makes a home? While this is a pretty common question literature has posed to its readers, oftentimes authors have a number of deeper considerations to make when writing about something so fundamental to who they are. How can a writer rebuild a home from words alone? How is that connection with the … Read more
[ad_1] In Primo Levi: An Identikit, the Italian critic Marco Belpoliti pieces together Primo Levi’s life as a writer, Jewish citizen of Italy, public intellectual, and survivor of Auschwitz. Like an identikit, or composite sketch, the book presents a mosaic image of the author composed of stories of different parts of his life and work. … Read more