Hanif Kureishi’s Relentlessly Revealing Memoir “How a tragic accident helped the author find his rebellious voice again” In December 2022, at age 68, writer Hanif Kureishi fell onto a hard floor in Rome and woke up a tetraplegic. Hillary Kelly visited Kureishi in London in December 2024 and here describes that visit and comments on […]
What We Learn About Our World by Imagining Its End Arthur Krystal ponders the stories humans have devised about when and how the world will end: “Having to come to terms with this eventuality [the end of the world] is the price we pay for being able to imagine it in the first place.” Tash
I’ve long been a fan of audiobooks. (You can read about my experience with them here.) But they complicate book discussions by muddying the waters of the standard terminology of literary criticism. In fact, just creating a title for this post took me a long time; according to my notes, I’ve been contemplating this question since
What Should We Call the Person Recorded Reading an Audiobook? Read More »
Six Trick Novels That Play with Form One of my favorite kind of fiction is a book that plays with form. Here Gareth Rubin, writer of both fiction and nonfiction, discusses 6 novels that do just that. His list includes one of my all-time favorites, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018) by Stuart Turton.
This month’s exercise begins with a classic – Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. first degree Since the starting point is a book I’ve never had even the slightest inclination to read, I’ll take the easiest approach for my first degree, repetition of a keyword from the title: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura
6 Degrees of Separation: Danger! Water! Read More »
Read all about it here! This event was founded in my native state of Connecticut in 2011.
Take Your Child to the Library Day! Read More »
Here’s the first entry in my effort to do better this year in documenting the books I read each month. I read (well, listened to the audiobook) and reviewed Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I also read The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch for my book club meeting in February. I’m going to wait until
Reading Notes: January Read More »
How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking? Language is perhaps the ultimate social construct. Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, examines “unease about the erosion of various cultural identities” as English continues to spread around the globe. At issue is the question of whether languages “influence how
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
BookLooks, RatedBooks, and Other Unprofessional Book “Review” Sites to Know: Book Censorship News, January 10, 2025 “One of the trends we’ll see in book censorship over 2025 is the increased use of unprofessional, politically-driven book review websites like BookLooks to make decisions in professional library and educational settings,” writes Kelly Jensen for Book Riot. I
