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,
Just when my thoughts were etching a loop as I struggled to describe Madeleine Thien’s new novel, The Book of Records, I came across this Joy Williams quotation*: “What good stories deal with is the horror and incomprehensibility of time, the dark encroachment of old catastrophes.” That is, indeed,
In which I read two books with #NovNov in mind, hosted by Rebecca and Cathy: one novella that feels like an expanded short story, and the other that swells with links of main character and themes across three segments. First published in Rio de Janeiro’s newspaper from 1881-1882 and
You might recall that I filled my first #ShelfofMexico shortly after the current American administration renamed The Gulf of Mexico. There were some fabulous suggestions and all year, so far, I’ve been reading. (Shelf One is the first photo; I've already read all but one.) I knew that I
Earlier in June, I was saying that I had read another seven books towards this challenge, and here they are. By Ojibwe/Cree, Dene/Métis, Swampy Cree-Beaver Clan of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Secwépemc, Haisla/Heiltsuk, Couchiching First Nation/Ojibwe] authors. Nope, I’m not deliberately selecting different nations; that’s happening by-the-by. For those
