This novel is all voice and what a voice it is! Acerbic, irreverent, anti-everything but mostly anti-male, it is also witty, funny and very, very smart. It's the voice of a young woman who is judgmental…
What I'm Reading
Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Aug 11, 2023TransAtlantic is a novel with a generous reach, but a hidden purpose. This is what makes it a powerful reading experience. I am calling it an experience because it's a novel you will read slowly,…
Take What You Need by Idra Novey
Jul 07, 2023Take What You Need, Idra Novey's most recent novel, is a stunning piece of work. Consisting of three complex, beautifully drawn characters, the novel is about caretaking relationships. Jean…
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel
Jun 09, 2023Jane has an unusual passion. She is a paleobiologist who believes that bringing the woolly mammoth back to life will stop the ice from disappearing in the Artic. The theory is that when this prehistoric…
The Pachinko Parlor by Elisa Shua Dusapin, (trans. by Aneesa Abbas Higgins)
Apr 22, 2023I wanted to write about The Pachinko Parlor, Elsa Shua Dusapin's story about an immigrant Korean community in Japan that runs Korean gaming parlors, because the novel so successfully reveals…
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Mar 26, 2023Birnam Wood is the new novel by the New Zealand writer, Eleanor Catton, a literary author who crosses into mystery and suspense. Her previous novel, The Luminaries, was a brick of…
Skinship by Yoon Choi
Feb 11, 2023Few people write long short stories these days and one of the reasons may be that they are so hard to get published. Many quarterlies prefer to publish briefer stories to showcase more writers. And…
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer
Jan 06, 2023Most of the stories in Hilma Wolitzer's newly published collection were written in the nineteen seventies, but the humor and wit that electrifies each one feels timeless, and relative to our present,…
On Division by Goldie Goldbloom
Nov 21, 2022I just discovered Goldie Goldbloom's 2019 novel, On Division, about a Chassidic woman who discovers she is pregnant at age 57, when she already isa grandmother. It takes the reader into the…
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Oct 31, 2022In this powerful, many-layered novel, Bennett explores the role of identity in six connected lives, considering race and gender as her characters wrestle with truth. Some are looking for the truth about…