Literature

In a year packed with noteworthy novels, it can be hard to remember that big, important, vital ideas sometimes come in small packages. Many of the year’s best collections represent a return to form for some of the greatest writers of our time, and while the stories may be brief, their impact is felt long

In her 1993 poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,” author and educator, Lucille Clifton, invites us to wonder at the life she has created: “… i had no model born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself?  i made it up.”  As a Black woman existing at the

You Can’t Unsubscribe From Grief For Cai Replying All on the Death Announcement Email On New Year’s Day, I got an email from an old writer friend announcing plans to end her life. Her life was already ending. This expedited ending-of-life had been approved by a medical professional. She was electing to die with dignity.

Well-balanced partnerships of equal and mutual commitment among two parties, exchange positions of control with a seesaw’s regularity. One lifts as one descends, the other plops foreseeably downward, the process is repeated. To watch this tradeoff is like being a parent yawning at the playground perimeter. How much more eye-catching, variable, and turbulent is a

Among the exceptional writing brought to us in 2023, poetry has seen a renewed and necessary visibility. Whether you’ve listened to the soaring rallying cry from the picket line, or the way these collections have been a voice for the voiceless, one thing is clear: this has been a year of fierce and fearless poetry,

A woman turns into a forest. So begins Maru Ayase’s novel, The Forest Brims Over, translated into English by Haydn Trowell. Rui Nowatari is an (in)famous muse for her husband’s romance novels; one day, she swallows a handful of seeds and germinates. What follows is a layered exploration of what it means to create, and

Vacation Is No Escape From Her Sorry Husband Louise Kennedy Share article Beyond Carthage by Louise Kennedy It had begun at dawn as they got off the plane, sparse plashes on the runway. By the time the coach deposited them at the Marhaba Aparthotel it was a slanted, dancing deluge. For three days they had

A great heist story features criminals we love to hate. While we disagree with their actions, a team of thieves is bound to bring drama and keep the pages turning. This genre has been immortalized in classic films like the Ocean’s 11 series, but there is a bevy of fantastic novels that push the boundaries

Jiordan Castle’s memoir-in-verse Disappearing Act follows the teen-version of herself as she lives through the arrest, court proceedings, and subsequent incarceration of her father while navigating the fraught years of the transition from girlhood to adolescence. Through mostly narrative poems‚ Castle invites us into her world as it’s changing faster than her mind can keep

“It was an uncertain spring,” begins The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, which takes place during the peak of the Covid lockdown in New York. As the pandemic rages, a group is haphazardly forced to shelter in one Manhattan apartment together: a parrot without its owners, a young man estranged from his parents, and the narrator,

An enduring battle between book lovers is that of hardcovers versus paperbacks. Ultimately, your preference might come down to many factors. Hardcover fans insist on the book’s durability and quality and being among the first to purchase a long-awaited release, while paperback lovers advocate for the cheaper price and lightweight design. But in addition to

If you are a person on social media, then my guess is you have at least one person you hate-follow—you know the type, the person you simultaneously envy and eye roll at every post. They are dating the person you want to date or wearing the clothes you want to wear or working the job

This American Dream Tastes Like Government Cheese Dear Irreverence, We were raised on food stamps that looked like British pounds and dead-end jobs where bodies slung over crates and cans and cam shafts or pouches with pennies and coupons and a giant magnet sign wearing the paint off the car was just another insult. This

Since the early aughts, the cultural phenomenon known as the Korean Wave has expanded from a tiny homegrown ripple to a global tsunami of trends and merchandise encompassing pop music, gaming, cosmetics, cuisine, film and TV, and literature. K-pop bands now top the music charts, kimchi and gochujang are sold in most supermarkets, and Gen-Z

On March 20th, 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released. Just a few days after the majority of the world shut down, marking the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people fell into a virtual world in which sickness was not rampant and you could pay back the construction costs on your home at

Farah Ali’s debut novel The River, The Town is a haunting portrait of lives relegated to the margins by capitalism and its resulting byproduct: the inequitable distribution of resources. The world of the novel centers two places, the Town and the City, and the narrative focus, in typical Farah-Ali-fashion, is on people. Farah tells me

Performing on Stage for an Audience of One Sarah Blakley-Cartwright Share article An excerpt from Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright Check out the audiobook edition of this excerpt, read by award-winning actress Chloë Sevigny, from Simon & Schuster Audio. AliceFRIDAY Opening night and, as soon as they could get Leontes’s detachable sleeves Velcroed on—the

These 10 books take the imaginability of other minds as their explicit subject. Their writers are curious about nonhuman consciousness: could language reproduce that as well? In order to imaginewhat animals, plants, or objects might be thinking, these writers try to think those thoughts themselves. They wonder: what is it like to be an elephant,