For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] Last Thursday we celebrated the fifth annual Chicago Review of Books Awards, co-presented by StoryStudio Chicago. The “Chirby” awards celebrate the best books published by Chicago-based writers and poets–and the best essay published by a Chicago writer–in the past year. Here are 2020’s winners. Congratulations to everyone! (You can read the shortlist here.) Poetry: Too … Read more
[ad_1] Well, that certainly was a year we all just endured. We at the CHIRB hope that you’ve found solace in the pages of a good yarn whenever possible, and that you’re able to celebrate the upcoming holidays both safely and joyfully. But 2020 isn’t quite done with us yet and there are still many … Read more
[ad_1] Sam J. Miller’s new book The Blade Between is not a laid-back read for a languid afternoon. No, this is a sit-up-straight book. Full of jarring juxtapositions, this book is as engrossing as it is challenging. While it requires your attention, The Blade Between rewards you with a heady, addictive mix of realism and … Read more
[ad_1] In her debut novel, The Opium Prince, Jasmine Aimaq centers a frequently overlooked aspect of tumult in Afghanistan: if opium were not in demand, possessing it wouldn’t translate into power. A hierarchy – a royalty of sorts – exists around the creation and distribution of opiates in the East, in no small part because … Read more
[ad_1] Greer Macallister’s thrilling historical fiction novel, The Arctic Fury, is a love letter to adventurous women, unlikely friendships, and finding possibilities in a bleak, unforgiving wilderness. Set in the 1850s, a mysterious, wealthy woman hires guide Virginia Reeve to lead an expedition to find her husband lost in the Arctic North. The novel opens … Read more
[ad_1] Burning Worlds is Amy Brady’s monthly column dedicated to examining how contemporary literature interrogates issues of climate change, in partnership with Yale Climate Connections. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter to get “Burning Worlds” and other writing about art and climate change delivered straight to your inbox. Welsh writer Cynan Jones has long depicted the fraught relationship between humanity … Read more
[ad_1] In the title story of Nicole Krauss’s fifth book and first collection of stories, To Be a Man, the narrative bends and breaks. Written in three sections with subsections, the narration shifts from first person to third, and then back to first. It’s only twenty-five pages. And it is as brilliant in execution as … Read more
[ad_1] For five years in a row the Chicago Review of Books has presented annual awards to the best works of poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and essay or short-story by Chicago-based writers. Last year we announced the first ever Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award. Named for the site’s founding editor, the Morgan award is given to … Read more
[ad_1] “Acountryisclosingitsborder… (This is not today.)” “Pandemic/persecution/(The country has no conscience)… (This is not today).” In the first pages of M.I. Devine’s debut collection of experimental essays, Warhol’s Mother’s Pantry: Art, America, and the Mom in Pop, he calls back to the political turmoil of the early 1920s, when a pandemic raged and the U.S. … Read more
[ad_1] Regret and its effects are no strangers to books. Countless literary works, both fictional and not, explore our innate longing to return to the past, to experience a moment once again, and perhaps find some solace for our aching souls. Yet only time travel fiction allows its characters an opportunity to truly return to … Read more