For ReadIndies this year, hosted by Kaggsy, I’ve written about presses from Minneapolis Minnesota, during the democratic crisis unfolding in the United States: Graywolf Press | Coffee House Press | Rain Taxi Magazine. (I should have included Milkweed Editions there!) Presses that push the boundaries and invite readers to
Perhaps independent presses are most vital in their willingness to confront, to engage with ideas and possibilities that make readers uncomfortable. Consider Mélikah Abdelmoumen’s book about reading James Baldwin and William Styron, which opens with this epigraph from Raoul Peck’s J’étouffe: “Forgive me in advance,
In the first week of rereading, I mentioned that what I remembered of my first reading was that it was fast and seemingly steady; I had forgotten all the different types of narratives (the newspaper articles and the excerpts from Laura’s novel) and remembered only Iris. One reason for
I’ve been wanting to read a Robert Louis Stevenson novel since I noticed Kaggsy @ Bookish Ramblings marking Robert Louis Stevenson Day several years ago. (If you’ve missed her writing, here’s a recent glimpse of her 2023 post and 2024’s.) It’s actually celebrated on November 13th, but I’m posting
Through the summer, I read the 1966 classic novel Jubilee by Mississippi writer Margaret Walker (1915-1998). I chose it because I love the idea of having one novel in my stacks that stretches out for the whole summer. Inspired by the life of her great-grandmother, Walker takes readers across
