Tag: book

book list, Recommendations

Seven Books That Play With Form Recommended by Louise Wallace

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Seven Books That Play With Form Recommended by Louise Wallace

There’s a line in Lyn Hejinian’s poetics essay ‘The Rejection of Closure’ – form is not a fixture but an activity – and I love the idea of form being something that writers do, with purpose and intent. Maybe that comes from my background in poetry, but I seek out books that foreground that approach – texts where authors collide forms, pulling the strengths of various mediums together to generate something richer than what might have been possible for them in a single genre alone. Form can turn vastness into plenitude, Hejinian says, and books that are playful in this way can change the pacing on a dime, subvert a reader’s expectations or draw in other voices. The reading experience opens out. It feels luxurious, abundant.

When I write, I think about how the arrangement of words on the page might assist in conveying a particular sensation or feeling. These seven books have shown me new ways of shaping language to great effect. Some on this list are old favourites, inspirational touchstones, while others are newer discoveries – recent releases I’m still thinking about. 

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Interviews, my reading life

A Sense of Occasion author Brodie Crellin admires the ambition and agony of My Brilliant Friend

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A Sense of Occasion author Brodie Crellin admires the ambition and agony of My Brilliant Friend

Brodie Crellin is a London-based editor at Granta Magazine. In their debut novel, A Sense of Occasion, a fractured family reunited in a small English village after the sudden death of their matriarch, Mary. Over the course of a sweltering funeral weekend, long-buried resentments, secrets, and desires resurface as each family member grapples with grief in their own messy and often self-destructive way. Darkly funny and sharply observed, the novel explores the tangled dynamics of family, sex, and loss, revealing the chaos that lurks beneath even the most ordinary occasions.

We asked Crelling to answer our My Reading Life Q&A so readers can get to know the books that shaped their life and influenced their writing.

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Interviews

Tomás Q. Morín on Dystopia, Grief, and the Feline Voice Behind Cat Love

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Tomás Q. Morín on Dystopia, Grief, and the Feline Voice Behind Cat Love

Set in the near future, in an America that has resorted to flight travel assisted by the use of Emotional Support Humans, Tomás Q. Morín‘s Cat Love is a sometimes whimsical, sometimes tragic, always imaginatively conceived treatise on the nature of human relationships.  Narrated by an unnamed cat, we traverse her abrupt abduction from the cozy confines of feline comfort to the jarring realities of orchestrated car accidents, buck hunting in dry lake beds, and the multiple hazards of manufactured food.  Along the way, our cat heroine opines on art, music, and the afterlife in witty, often sardonic detail. With the artistry of a poet tripping the words fantastic in the realm of fiction, Morín navigates us through an emotionally hazardous tale juxtaposed with forgotten (forlorn?) tenderness to its ultimate, heartfelt conclusion.  I asked him about his motivation in constructing this world. 

The following is our exchange, conducted by email and edited and condensed for clarity.

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Interviews, my reading life

Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

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Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

Hannah Selinger is the author of the memoir Cellar Rar: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly and a James Beard Award-nominated writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Eater, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and elsewhere. Now, her debut novel has arrived on bookshelves, bringing her sharp eye for power, class, and human behavior into the world of fiction.

Valley of the Moms is a sharp, twisty thriller set in an affluent Massachusetts suburb where school politics can be as vicious as any crime. When Anna Plummer challenges an exclusionary PTO policy, she inadvertently sets off a chain of events that culminates a year later with her death and her husband’s determination to uncover what really happened. Told through alternating timelines and perspectives, the novel explores grief, privilege, social status, and the secrets that lurk beneath the polished surface of a seemingly idyllic community.

We asked Selinger to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

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book list, Recommendations

Seven Novels About Trips Gone Wrong Recommended by Vincent Chu

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Seven Novels About Trips Gone Wrong Recommended by Vincent Chu

The fantasy of leaving home for a faraway place has always held my imagination. As a boy, I dreamed of running away from our comfortable home to find new joys in the woods behind the Safeway. As an adult, I’ve twice sold my furniture and moved overseas. In novels, we know that when a character leaves for a trip, things are bound to go sideways. Still, there are levels to it, and it’s those travel novels that don’t just surprise, but unravel into something wholly bizarre and subversive and painfully human, that I love and come back to.

In my debut novel, Nice Places, a thirty-something named Georgie decides to travel the world for one year to escape the “daily existential discomfort” of his conventional life. But before he can even make it to the airport, a meditation guru robs him and he finds himself at a guesthouse in the bad part of his city, just miles from home. With only his phone and an unexpected community of guests and locals, his trip quickly takes a turn.

Here are some of my favorite novels that also feature trips going wrong.

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Interviews, my reading life

F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy

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F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy

Haili Blassingame’s debut novel, They All Fall in Love at the End, follows Cat St. Clair, a twenty-four-year-old writer trying to balance an open relationship, artistic ambition, and the chaos of the 2024 election. What begins as a quest for freedom and self-determination spirals into a complicated love triangle involving her boyfriend’s best friend and his girlfriend, forcing Cat to confront the consequences of pursuing everything she wants. Set against a backdrop of political tension and creative uncertainty, the novel explores nonmonogamy, desire, identity, and the challenge of imagining new possibilities for love and liberation.

Blassingame is a producer for NPR’s 1A and has written for publications including The New Republic and The New York Times, where her Modern Love essay “My Choice Isn’t Marriage or Loneliness” went viral. She previously worked on NPR’s Code Switch and Weekend Edition and is pursuing an MFA in creative writing from American University.

We asked Blassingame to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

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Interviews, my reading life

P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

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P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

P.C. Verrone’s debut novel, Rabbit, Fox, Tar, is a fable-like story about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in a tightly knit neighborhood threatens to unravel its foundations. When Baby appears in Original Hill and begins a romance with the ambitious Lucius “Lucky” Foote, her presence upends a contentious city council race and intensifies long-simmering tensions over a Black neighborhood destroyed decades earlier to make way for a highway. As Baby becomes entangled in the lives of the community’s residents and begins questioning her origins, the novel explores race, power, belonging, memory, and the stories communities tell about themselves.

Verrone’s work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, a Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and a WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner.

We asked Verrone to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

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Interviews

Boyhood, Bruce, and Boots: Steven Pfau Discusses Say Nephew

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Boyhood, Bruce, and Boots: Steven Pfau Discusses Say Nephew

When I received my galley of Steven Pfau’s Say Nephew: On Boyhood, Unclehood and Queer Mentorship. I was really excited to read it. Book covers are my love language, so when I saw the cover of Steven’s book, I thought, This is going to be a good read. I chatted with Steven over Zoom about being under the tutelage of his loud, humorous, and swagger-filled Uncle Bruce. We chatted about nephews, guncles, and cowboy boots. 

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