For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] “Two deaths you cannot have and one you cannot avoid.” So goes a Russian saying Mikhail Iossel remembers in his excellent new collection Love Like Water, Love Like Fire. Funny thing about Iossel’s stories of Soviet life, though: they are filled with men and women living second lives, drunks who avoided death (to their … Read more
[ad_1] I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I like to read fiction; I think I feel fulfilled after reading a book with particularly beautiful prose or a really interesting plot, inspired to create and go out into the world with a renewed sense of vigor. I believe that time can’t be wasted; especially … Read more
[ad_1] FORBIDDEN DOOR Before I was born, I was halved. New Age internet says many of us are this way, half-hearts looking for completion. I’ve been looking for my lost parts forever, so I am never not serious in love. It could be anyone, I used to think. I just had to find him and … 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 Mia … Read more
[ad_1] Works of art become powerful when they can convey—or at least hint at—some kind of truth. This notion alone presumes that the artist knows something the average person does not. Creators help connect people with something that has always been known, deep down, but could never accurately be expressed. But the balance between living … Read more
[ad_1] Creating a fresh playlist of such a critical voice in modern American poetry is both a significant challenge for the editors and a satisfying reward for us. The Essential June Jordan, edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller, is a generous collection which samples poems—some unpublished—across decades, making one distinctly aware of how … Read more
[ad_1] Science fiction dystopias have often featured authoritarian governments, yet increasingly in the real world, the nation-state is ceding power to privately held corporations. Hypercapitalism threatens individual liberty in Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak, where two megacorporations have all but replaced the American government and control essential natural resources. Mal and her best friend Jessa live in … Read more
[ad_1] In global navigation, a great circle is drawn along the shortest route between any two points on Earth. It is, then, the most direct course to a given place, one taken when the journey, perhaps, is of less importance than the destination. While such routes may be the most efficient, they are bent to … Read more
[ad_1] May is typically a month of new beginnings: students are graduating, flowers are blooming, vacations are on the horizon along with the promise of warmer weather. That could be said of this year more than most. Many of us are starting to take our first trepidatious steps into the world after a long hibernation. … Read more
[ad_1] Founded in 1906, the history of Gary, Indiana, has curious, layered aspects, comprised of silt, slag, and blood. You gain access to it in a car ride, your passenger noting, “My family used to own that building…” You overhear it in an impromptu conversation, a shared recollection of close detail and laughter. You cross it … Read more