by J. D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy is Vance’s memoir describing his uncommon escape from poverty in America’s Rust Belt to eventually graduate Yale Law School. The author takes us through his experiences to describe what he sees as drivers of poverty to help readers better understand why so many become trapped in the lower class,…
Read more
by Dave Eggers A Hologram for the King is about Alan, a failed American businessman up to his eyeballs in debt. Previously superficially making the acquaintance of the nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Alan manages to get a place among the team from the massive tech firm, Reliant, to pitch their new hologram…
Read more
by Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl is Frank’s personal diary kept during the two years spent in hiding in a small apartment in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during WWII. Upon hearing the Dutch government was seeking out personal accounts of the conflict for later publication, she wrote and rewrote many passages with the intention…
Read more
by Waubgeshig Rice Moon of the Crusted Snow explores an apocalypse from the viewpoint of a secluded Anishinaabe community in Northern Ontario. As it’s already only loosely attached to metropolitan Canada in the south––cell and internet service is relatively new and patchy, at best; the recent connection to the Hydro grid is just as reliable,…
Read more
by Arjun Basu Long-time readers will probably know how often I like to go out on a limb and suggest some fairly outlandish things––making presumptions about deeper meanings or even an author’s mentality when settling in on specific techniques used. While the discussions that result can sometimes feel not far off from taking a stab…
Read more
by Kim Moritsugu Looks Perfect is about the fashion-editor extraordinaire for Panache magazine, Rosemary, and her romantic entanglements. While covering the ready-to-wear collections in Europe and New York, she keeps bumping into Brian Turnbull––the sexy and rich owner of multiple fashion magazines. The first half of the book involves his extramarital fling with Rosemary, along…
Read more
by Ann Y. K. Choi I seem to be finding it harder and harder to give an author the benefit of the doubt while reading, and I think it’s becoming a problem. The realization came partway through Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety after reading something particularly unsubtle or repetitive and putting the book down, likely more…
Read more
by Patrick deWitt I’m a fan of Patrick deWitt. (I don’t think I’ve kept this a secret.) So naturally I was tickled pink when I heard he had a new book out. And, hearing it consistently described as something of a “tragedy of manners,” I wasn’t particularly surprised. Given what I saw as parallels to…
Read more
by Leonard Cohen Beautiful Losers was apparently a big deal when it was originally published in the ’60s. From what I’ve read, critics understood it to be the most interesting and unique Canadian novel of its time, but for the most part it was panned for being incoherent and vulgar. (And, I mean, it is,…
Read more
by Iraj Pezeshkzad My Uncle Napoleon is a famous, cherished Iranian novel. Written in the ’70s, it was banned briefly after the 1979 revolution, presumably because of lewdness and sexuality. The story apparently struck such a chord in Iran because Pezeshkzad so accurately captured and poked fun at the widespread paranoia toward the British that…
Read more