Reading Archive
Speaking of Megaphones: Why Reading Literature Now Might Be Useful
I could spin many narratives for why I wanted this series. Instead I'll be honest with you: it was mostly for my own sanity. Maybe you've got a better handle on this than I do, but my way of engaging with our daily media does not feel particularly healthy,
Christmas with Alice Munro
Like many of Alice Munro’s stories, her Christmas stories are occupied with work and explore the subtleties of how work defines identity. Of the three stories I’ll discuss, “The Turkey Season” (1980) is the most explicitly about Christmas, ending with a snowy tableau on Christmas Eve.
Your Turn Now to Stand Where I Stand: Growing Up with Little Earthquakes
I may not have been the only teenaged boy in America in the 1990s to listen over and over to Tori Amos’ 1992 album LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, but it felt like I was.
Anything Goes: Storytelling in a Digital Age
In the age of the Internet, fiction writing is changing yet again. As readers and writers, should we fear the use of technology in books? History says “no.”
Grief and Goodbye in Endings
Octavia Butler said, “All good things must begin.” And lucky for us, they do. But “all good things must come to an end,” too.
Feed Yourself: Jonathan Gold’s “A Neighborhood Just West of Downtown”
Very few writers I know got any writing done last month. We posted article after article about how the apocalypse has started or could potentially be avoided, or what great writers have said about fascism and resistance, or how artists can help marginalized groups.
Stand With Standing Rock: Books That Honor Activism
On Sunday, the Obama administration announced that Energy Transfer Partners, the company managing construction on the pipeline, must halt until the Army Corps of Engineers completes an environmental impact study.
An End-of-2016 Books in Translation Reading Wishlist
Despite having read and enjoyed works in translation like Christos Ikonomou's Something Will Happen, You'll See and Burhan Sönmez's İstanbul, İstanbul, I know that the full range of works in translation this year alone is vast (580 books according to Three Percent's 2016 database).
People of the Book: Jewish Lessons in Reading
The postmodernists are often credited with originating the idea that all the world’s a text, a constellation of signs and symbols to be read and reread unto eternity. Really, it was the Jews. Judaism is a religion obsessed with text and textuality, with making meaning through the cultivation of
In Sickness: Feeling Unwell in the Wake of the U.S. Election
In the days after the U.S. presidential election last month, people became sick. Friends, colleagues, and mere acquaintances narrated their symptoms.