In which I discuss some of the skinny volumes which have kept me company while on the move, while heavier volumes (like Connie Willis' Crosstalk and Steven King's 11/22/1963) stayed home. Warsan Shire's chapbook is my skinniest book of the year. I finished reading it on a single commute, but
Nothing really happens. Here, the "main event is simply a view of the water". So Ruby's story should not be a page-turner. But, in fact, The Town that Drowned is a coming-of-age story with a curious momentum. No single element is responsible: character and voice, setting and structure, all work
With a lengthy TBR, it's sometimes difficult to finish reading a series: this year, with trilogies, I am exercising my completion muscles. Earlier this year, I went back and reread the initial volume of Margaret Drabble's Thatcher trilogy and Judith Kerr's Out of the Hitler Time trilogy, and then finished the other
In which I discuss some of the skinny volumes, which have nestled into my bookbag (while longer works, like Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers and Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, were left at home. Vivek Shraya's God Loves Hair is illustrated by Juliana Neufeld, a full-page image introducing each of
Back in the days when you taped movies onto video cassettes, I was recording "Anna Karenina" to watch another time, when I turned on the television -- thinking the film was over and the credits would be running past -- and I could not unsee the last few seconds of the story
