Jeff Backhaus’s beautiful debut novel, Hikikomori and the Rental Sister, opens with a man locked inside a room, unable to come out except for in the middle of the night, while his wife is sleeping. Ever since losing his young son in an accident which he feels he should have prevented, Thomas Tessler has been…Continue reading Hikikomori and the Rental Sister by Jeff Backhaus
Category: book reviews
I am the Common Reader: Virginia Woolf on pleasure, reading, & the survival of literature
Despite her knowledge of Greek and her voracious reading of the classics, Virginia Woolf considered herself a self-taught reader. As a woman, she had been denied the illustrious Oxford education that the men in her family enjoyed. As it turns out, her lack of affectation, her insistence on taking pleasure in reading, is what makes her…Continue reading I am the Common Reader: Virginia Woolf on pleasure, reading, & the survival of literature
8 Great Books
Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles, by Fabio Bartolomei Enchantment, New & Selected Stories, by Thaisa Frank Kayak Morning, by Roger Rosenblatt Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon The Middlesteins, by Jami Attenberg Love and Shame and Love, by Peter Orner The Not Yet, by Moira Crone Pure, by Julianna Baggott
The Darling by Russel Banks
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is here again, with a review of The Darling by Russell Banks. I remember having a book signed by Russell Banks in Atlanta perhaps a decade ago, back when that great bookstore housed in a used car dealership still existed. I was 23 years old, and it was the first book I ever…Continue reading The Darling by Russel Banks