Mavis Gallant’s “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)

2020-05-21T15:56:26-04:00

Reading this story might change your reading life forever. That's what happened to Peter Orner, whose essay on Mavis Gallant's stories is mesmerizing: "The Way Vivid, Way Underappreciated Short Stories of Mavis Gallant", published in The Atlantic's "By Heart" series. "The first story I read is called 'The Ice Wagon

Mavis Gallant’s “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)2020-05-21T15:56:26-04:00

August 2017, In My Bookbag

2017-08-11T13:57:35-04:00

In which I discuss the skinny volumes which accompany me on my travels, while the heavier volumes (like John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany and Callum Roberts' The Ocean of Life) remain at home. Juliane Okot Bitek was inspired to engage with the Rwanda Genocide in response to Kenyan-American artist

August 2017, In My Bookbag2017-08-11T13:57:35-04:00

Margaret Millar’s The Listening Walls (1959; 2016)

2017-03-06T16:21:14-05:00

Although some of the characters in the Margaret Millar mysteries I have read answer their own phones, many answer other people's phones instead: the telephones of older or more privileged relatives or those of their bosses. There's even a switchboard operator in the mix, along with a woman better known

Margaret Millar’s The Listening Walls (1959; 2016)2017-03-06T16:21:14-05:00

Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures (2016)

2017-01-03T11:22:08-05:00

“There was virtually no aspect of twentieth-century defense technology that had not been touched by the hands and minds of female mathematicians.” HarperCollins, 2016 That might not come up in math class at school, but it's evident on every page of Hidden Figures. "What I wanted was for

Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures (2016)2017-01-03T11:22:08-05:00

Telling Stories: Five 2016 Novels

2016-12-13T10:55:34-05:00

It's not all "Reader, I married him" but plenty of contemporary novels are preoccupied by the idea of storytelling, and often one voice does speak to us directly even now. Periscope Books, 2016 In Tabish Khair's Just Another Jihadi Jane, the storyteller's direct address appears regularly and spiritedly.

Telling Stories: Five 2016 Novels2016-12-13T10:55:34-05:00
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