For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] I can safely say I’ve never read another book from the perspective of a foul-mouthed crow before I read Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. A novel unlike any other, Hollow Kingdom is an apocalyptic story told from the point of view of Shit Turd, a pet crow who once belonged to a man named Big Jim. As … Read more
[ad_1] Jonas Eika—author of After the Sun, translated into English by Sherilyn Nicolette Helberg—has managed to do the impossible; or, at least, the very difficult. He’s written a book that both feels bleeding-edge now, and seems like it will still feel bleeding-edge in a decade. Certainly, the complexities of our modern world are no stranger … Read more
[ad_1] “Most literature, like life, is about how to have less and how to have more,” says Deborah Levy in Real Estate, the third volume of her “living autobiography” of her life as a writer and woman. In this latest chronicle, Levy wonders what it might mean to have more as she turns 60 and … Read more
[ad_1] I discovered the seminal punk band Angry Samoans when I was 14, thanks to the lurid cover of their second and best-known album “Back From Samoa.” The songs were idiotic, with titles like “Tuna Taco” and “My Old Man’s a Fatso,” but they winked knowingly at the listener. There is wisdom in madness, they … Read more
[ad_1] In a climate of planetary crises and collapses of democracy, Aruni Kashyap’s There is No Good Time for Bad News talks about renewed prospects and survival after violence. The poems in this collection are about a landscape that has much catching up to do compared to its nation’s momentum of progression. In “Alpha Ursae … Read more
[ad_1] “You do not have to be white to be a white feminist,” Rafia Zakaria writes in the author’s note to her latest collection of essays, Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption. It is also possible, she further argues, to be white and feminist and still “not be a white feminist.” The term, then, seems … Read more
[ad_1] Following the tremendous success of her summer 2020 blockbuster, Mexican Gothic, Mexican-Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new novel, Velvet Was the Night, arrives just in time for us to enjoy it at the peak of this sultry season. Described by the author in the novel’s afterword as “noir, pulp fiction…based on a real horror story,” … Read more
[ad_1] “The proper function of a critic,” wrote D. H. Lawrence in 1923, “is to save the tale from the artist who created it.” Punish the writer, he was saying, but don’t destroy the art. When Lawrence published those words in Studies in Classical American Literature, he wasn’t talking specifically about himself, but the experience … Read more
[ad_1] Reading Megan Stielstra is like having a cool older sister telling you it’ll be okay. She doesn’t sugarcoat the truth; she acknowledges things are hard. That honesty makes you trust her. Plus, she’s smart and makes you laugh—it’s no wonder we walk away from reading her books feeling better. My first introduction to Stielstra’s … 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? This week’s guest is Said … Read more