"She learned letters and manners from the pale, dismayed wives of her father's subordinates, who raised her to defend the hearth and revile a lie - nominally at least, for the older she grew the more she came to recognize falsehood as the preservative that allowed the world to maintain its shape. The lumbermen, for … Continue reading Review: Inland by Téa Obreht
"Even in death the boys were trouble. The secret graveyard lay on the north side of the Nickel campus, in a patchy acre of wild grass between the old work barn and the school dump...The developers of the office park had earmarked the field for a lunch plaza, with four water features and a concrete … Continue reading Review: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
April has flown by in the breathless fury that always seems to associate itself with mid-spring. Although I remain devastated at my loss of the UK's four-day Easter weekend, April remains one of my favourite months of the year. It is also just about the only mild month that the US midwest seems to get … Continue reading The Monthly Reader: April 2019
"To be a Parisian in Nablus was to be out of step with the times, locked in an old colonial formula where subjects imitated masters as if in the seams of their old garments they hoped to find some dust of power left trapped. This was not precisely the case with Midhat, who seemed rather … Continue reading Review: The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
Still steeped in the dregs of winter's last remaining weeks, it is the opportune moment to revisit the most interesting and exciting literary happenings for the month of February. Whether this has been a month of sweet anticipation for the oncoming spring, romantic indulgence, or a continuing demonstration of hibernation habits, this edition of The Monthly … Continue reading The Monthly Reader: February 2019
"The child is dead. There is nothing left to know. I hear there is a queen in the south who kills men who bring her bad news. So when I give word of the boy's death, do I write my own death with it? Truth eats lies just as the crocodile eats the moon, and … Continue reading Review: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
2018 was a great year for fiction. From powerfully provocative works such as Richard Powers' The Overstory and Tommy Orange's There There to the incredible feminist retelling of classic Greek myth in Madeline Miller's Circe, the diversity was incredible. Fortunately, 2019 promises to be another wonderful year for literature (I mean, any year that features a new release from … Continue reading Books To Watch For In 2019: The Year’s Most Anticipated Releases
