Lately I have been reading short books and short stories in an effort to sustain my own daily reading habit in a way that feels compatible with the current demands on my time. In her new book, Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books, Hwang Bo-Reum asks the question that plagues all readers (and writers) …
Wilson spent the summer in the headlines for her takedown of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey script — a film whose director had cited her translation as an influence. This is the better use of her attention: an orientation for anyone who finishes the Epic and wonders where to go next, a case for returning to the …
Like the authors of some of my favorite recent memoirs—Hilary Peach’s Thick Skin, Finn Murphy’s The Long Haul, Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt—Paré-Poupart had access to the class-elevating levers of education but found himself in a blue-collar trade and chose to stay for decades. In his case, that’s hauling garbage in Montreal, hurling bags of trash into the …
As someone who knows a lot of kiddos who have trouble with sleep (and having once been one of those kids!) I am so glad to discover this book. How comforting to know even Sleep herself needs her rest and can have a hard time falling asleep. An enchanting visual lullaby that’s perfect for bedtime. …
Believe it or not, The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee is a delightfully sweet story centered on the lives of three (and sometimes more) people who hang out at a cafe in Japan. Our story starts when narrator Momoko has just been dumped by her boyfriend after several years of her fastidious attempts to tend …
Yamamoto has deftly created short stories where the title characters are difficult women. Women who have complicated relationships with their families and significant others. They work hard for independence, like the woman who has breast cancer or the middle aged woman working the night shift, and end up taking the blame when things fall apart. …
A cafe-bookshop, complete with its young owner and her cat, magically encounters those in need of finding memories that were once lost. Four stories written across the seasons, this beautifully written book is a warm hug for anyone that’s lost someone dear, that will leave you feeling hopeful and a little more healed than before …
I love reading. I love language. I love reading about language and there are few people whose thoughts on language I’d rather read than Yoko Tawada’s. She writes in both Japanese and German and I’ve long been a fan of her fiction, which uses language creatively and often explores it thematically. To me, these essays …
The sadness of the underlying story in this novel is only matched by the beauty of the art that connects a girl and her grandfather to their life together. As they race against time to fill her memory with the best of over 500 years worth of Western art, Mona learns what it means to …
Two Face Outs/ “walk me to the shelf” recs for Brian Juenemann, the Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, from India at Spoke & Word Books in Milwaukie, OR: Klan members are turning into nasty little monsters (their outsides matching their insides) called ku kluxes. Our trio of badasses is unaliving them in …
