At first, I planned to carry on with my non-fiction and fiction rhythm from my booklog. While I was reading up on Lauren Groff to review her new book for The Chicago Review of Books, I came across her essay “The Ambivalent Activist, Jane Roe” in Fight of the
The 1619 Project (Edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein) opens with an epigraph from Langston Hughes, his poem “American Heartbreak 1619”: I am the American heartbreak-- The rock on which freedom Stumped its toe-- The great mistake That Jamestown made Long ago He’s such
This has been a rich year for short stories. Some collections I’ve enjoyed without making notes, like Venita Blackburn’s How to Wrestle a Girl (2021); her stories are vivid and will appeal to readers who prioritize voice, as well as readers who admire a certain playfulness that’s delicately balanced
The more that I read now about the climate emergency, the more references I find within my other reading. Here, in Deirdre McNamer’s Aviary (2021), an unexpectedly lyrical rumination: “She prayed for the groaning, hectically gorgeous, steaming world, which seemed, more and more often, to lurch and shudder on
The more time I’ve spent reading about slavery this year, the more often I’ve discovered references to it in unexpected places. (Looking to catch up? Here are all the links to the previous posts this year.) For instance, in Fred D’Aguiar’s memoir Year of Plagues (2021): “When I think
