In which I discuss the skinny books that slip into my bookbag while the heavier, cumbersome volumes (like Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean and Flannery O’Connor’s letters) stay home. Thirty-eight chapters and under 200 pages: Didier Leclair’s This Country of Mine (2003; Trans. Elaine Kennedy, 2018) issues an
This year I added another writer to my MRE list. In truth, he was one of the writers whose stories provoked that kind of MustReadEverything commitment early on, but I didn’t have a word for it yet. Authors who told the kind of stories that I wanted on my
Yes, I am that person who has a WWJJD magnet on the fridge: What Would Jane Jacobs Do? So of course, when I learned of Susan Hughes’ new illustrated children’s book about Jacobs, Walking in the City (Illus. Valérie Boivin, 2018), I sought out a copy. The bulk of
It’s fitting that a story which includes the visionary figure of Buckminster Fuller is rooted in possibility rather than history: “It is not intended to follow the precise history of what was, but rather to imagine a story that might have been.” This note precedes the novel and sets
June is at the heart of this collection of stories; she is the link, the thread of light through a series of dark scenes. She is our guide to the ‘burbs: “The picture perfect suburban dream with the groomed lawns, nine-to-five jobs, 2.5 children kind of places. Domino effect.
