Book Review: Weather by Jenny Offill
One of the attributes I always revere when reading novels is an author’s ability to create characters that demonstrate both the ideals and fears of an age and the dreams and realities of individuals. In Jenny Offill’s Weather, we meet Lizzie, a mother and wife who is balancing a multitude of personal issues that are […]
Book Review: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is one of the best authors on race in America. He has particular skill in taking the racial history of this country and weaving his literary characters around them – characters that are reactive to the bigotry of the period and who leave a legacy of resistance in the face of hate and […]
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a transformative and inspiring book. The author, Ocean Vuong, was born in Saigon, was not literate in English until age 11, and yet has wrote some of the most eloquent poetry and fiction in the language over the past five years. On Earth is Vuong’s first piece of long-form […]
The Cockroach by Ian McEwan
In a spin on Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis,’ Booker-Prize winning author Ian McEwan has created a world in which a cockroach has transitioned into a man, and this man has the control of the British government. We meet the cockroach/human after he has already awakened in the body of what is the Prime Minister of […]