If you’re not one of those people who has a stack of cookbooks on your nightstand already, you might not know that there’s a lot more to read in a cookbook than just the recipes. Cookbooks can be a sp…
Recommendations
Author Rabih Alameddine regularly shares batches of fine art on his Twitter feed. Partridges in the Snow, by Józef Marian Chełmoński, was among his recent shares.It’s no secret that Twitter i…
Michael AndreasenThe Sea Beast Takes a Lover Penguin, 2018 Yoshio AramakiThe Sacred EraTrans. Baryon Tensor PosadasUniversity of Minnesota Press, 20…
A Book Bento Box post for Hermione Hoby’s debut novel Neon in Daylight. photo: courtesy of book bento boxWhile social media gives us an unprecedented connecti…
The winter break was one of long reads: Exit West, If Beale Street Could Talk, Manhattan Beach, Little Fires Everywhere. After a busy four months of editing and…
Three brief, powerful novels in recent translation enriched my reading during the last few months. Stories of unrequited love, their protagonists suffer an unsatisfied, persistent longing for affirmat…
Nonfiction, Memoir & AnthologiesAmerica Is in the Heart, by Carlos Bulosan (University of Washington Press)Eye of the Fish, by Luis Franc…
The Art of DeathEdwidge DanticatGraywolf Press (2017)It might seem odd to focus on a book called The Art of Death as spring approaches (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), but we all know about…
Naomi Shihab NyeSitti’s SecretsSimon & Schuster Books for Young ReadersI remember coming across this beautifully written (and illustrated) children’s book when I was a hi…
illustration: jen rickard blairEven we will admit you can’t read all the time. You can, however, stay connected to literature while cooking, gardening, and exercising by listening to a well-produced l…
CompassMathias ÉnardTrans. Charlotte MandellNew Directions, 2017 At the very time one should be looking ahead to the excellent works in t…
One of my favorite book events ever was a celebration of gothic literature in Stoke Newington, London: it was held in a candlelit old church, and we read from Frankenstein before discussing e…
In Other WordsJhumpa LahiriTrans. Ann GoldsteinKnopf, 2016Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words is a vulnerable journey of self-exploration by means of linguistic exile. It’s notably her fi…
I bought Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy on a visit to her Somaliland hometown, Hargeisa. When I visited, Hargeisa was a dreary city—at least that was my first impression—until I g…
Browse: The World in BookshopsEd. Henry HitchingsPushkin Press, 2016Don’t mistake Browse for a collection of breezy tributes to writers’ favorite bookshops. The essays in this little…
This is not the Africa you knew. These books, some rooted in Africa but mostly embedded in multiple lands, explore issues of race, equality, immigration, cultural shifts, and more. At their core, they…
Effigies II: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writinged. Allison Hedge Coke (Salt Publishing, 2014) Christopher FelverTending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits …
There are three recent books from the University of Oklahoma Press that I know would make great summer reading. My own Mestizos Come Home! Making and Claiming Mexican American Identity…
As much as Managing Editor Michelle Johnson loves traveling, she also loves returning home. Her summer reading list reflects a similar course this year.Elif…
This summer Web Editor Jen Rickard Blair is planning to read a balance of books that refuel calm and creativity as well as examine human nature and our shared hi…
Editor in Chief Daniel Simon picks three books that promise to unsettle, console, and inspire.Anne CarsonFloatRandom HouseI found…
With a wealth of fiction, nonfiction, and verse stacking up in his office, Book Review Editor Rob Vollmar has narrowed his reading ambitions for the summer down to these three worthy titles.…
Photo: Bequest/PixabayBy a lake, on a train, deep in a canyon, or at home on your back porch: it’s time to catch up on the outstanding global writing publishers have been bringing out since January. H…
Kim StaffordThe Flavor of Unity: Post-Election PoemsLittle Infinities, 2017 Are you dreading the future after reading all the dystopian lit in this issue, or feeling paralyzed by the gen…
Illustration: Verso BooksDespite the popular culture trope that the golden age of activism (the 1950s and ’60s) is over, despite the endless distractions offered by digital entertainment, and despite…
