Earth Changes, Habit Changes (3 of 4)

2024-08-20T09:18:39-04:00

The climate crisis erupts regularly in my reading, in unexpected ways. In Natsumi Hoshino’s manga series for children, Plum Crazy, named for the household’s first cat, even the cats heard a news report and pawed at the light switches to reduce their energy consumption. (My laugh came out more

Earth Changes, Habit Changes (3 of 4)2024-08-20T09:18:39-04:00

Quarterly Stories: Summer 2021

2021-07-01T12:36:45-04:00

Alexie, Dunning, Piatote and an Anthology Short Stories in April, May and June Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to a must-read everything author and explored two new-to-me story writers.

Quarterly Stories: Summer 20212021-07-01T12:36:45-04:00

Here and Elsewhere: Between Places (2 of 4)

2021-10-05T15:43:37-04:00

Stories set in—and revolving around—Vietnam have appeared on BIP many times, like Marcelino Truong’s coming-of-age memoir in translation by David Homel: Such a Lovely Little War (2014; 2015) (his follow-up, Saigon Calling, brought the family to England). Also Robert Olen Butler’s Perfume River (2016) but to say much more

Here and Elsewhere: Between Places (2 of 4)2021-10-05T15:43:37-04:00

Marion Poschmann’s The Pine Islands (2017; Trans. Jen Calleja 2020)

2020-09-29T17:31:26-04:00

Marion Poschmann’s The Pine Islands (2017; Trans. Jen Calleja 2020) was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019. The jury describes it like this: “A quirky, unpredictable and darkly comic confrontation with mortality.” Her first book was published in Germany in 2002 and, since, her work has been

Marion Poschmann’s The Pine Islands (2017; Trans. Jen Calleja 2020)2020-09-29T17:31:26-04:00

The Writing Life: Flannery O’Connor (1 of 4)

2020-02-06T12:46:36-05:00

The collected letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald, in The Habit of Being: they’ve been on my bookshelves for a couple of decades. They date to the time when I gave less thought to the number of inches that a book required for storage. To the

The Writing Life: Flannery O’Connor (1 of 4)2020-02-06T12:46:36-05:00
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