LitStack Recs: Books About Actors and Film & Ancillary Justice
As the summer film season approaches, here are three books—a memoir, a novel, and a book-length interview—that offer a look...
Lauren Alwan
Lauren Alwan’s fiction has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, the Southern Review, the Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, in the Bellevue Literary Review. She is the recipient of a First Pages Prize, the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, and.a citation of Notable in Best American Essays. Her essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Catapult, World Literature Today, The Rumpus, The Millions, Writer's Digest, and others. She is a prose editor at the museum of americana, an online literary review. Follow her on Twitter at @lauren_alwan and learn more at www.laurenalwan.com
Litstack Recs: Anna May Wong & The Hatred of Poetry
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend, by Graham Russell Gao Hodges Don’t be misled by the tabloid...
LitStack Rec: Changing My Mind & Hunger Makes the Wolf
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith This collection of essays came about by accident, Zadie Smith tells us...
Litstack Recs: Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House & A Natural History of Dragons
Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House, by Meghan Daum The moral of this story might run...
LitStack Rec: Barbarian Days & A Taste of Honey
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan's 2016 memoir begins with an epigraph from Edward St. Aubyn's...
LitStack Rec: Bridge & The Ballad of Black Tom
Bridge, by Robert Thomas “Welcome to the prayer-strewn pews of my brain,” Alice, the narrator of Bridge tells us, and...
LitStack Recs: The Places In-Between & Vicious
The Places In-Between, by Rory Stewart In 2002, Rory Stewart made a walk across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul. A...
LitStack Rec: Out of Place & Dead Lands
Out of Place: A Memoir, by Edward Said Edward Said, the prolific author, political activist, pianist, and critic rose to...
LitStack Recs: Manhood for Amateurs & Low Town
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, essays by Michael Chabon The trope of...
LitStack Recs: The Death of the Heart & The Story of Ferdinand the Bull
The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Dig out your angora muffler and your ski gloves, because the temperature...
LitStaff Recs: This Boy’s Life & Kiss & Tell
This Boy's Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff First published in 1989, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life has since become a...
LitStack Recs: Far From the Madding Crowd & The Lost Child of Lychford
Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy Hardy's novel of romantic entanglements and farming rural life, set in fictional...
LitStack Recs: Nora Webster & Santa 17
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín At the heart of Colm Tóibín's new novel is the story of a woman, a story,...
LitStack Rec: Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures & Alif the Unseen
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub Readers captivated by Old Hollywood are sure to love Emma Straub’s debut...
LitStack Recs: Dreams From My Father & A Fort of Nine Towers
Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama Stories that center on fathers have a distinct place in the memoir genre....
LitStack Rec: The Good Soldier and Planetfall
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author selected, The...
LitStack Rec: Spielberg, Truffaut and Me & Feed
Spielberg, Truffaut and Me - An Actor's Diary, by Bob Balaban In the summer of 1976, during the first weeks...
LitStack Recs: The Foxfire Book & The Echo
The Firefox Book, by Elliot Wigginton (editor) A perfect book for #throwbackthursday, this compendium of customs and rural living practices...
LitStack Recs: Barbarian Days & Pride’s Spell
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan took his time writing this memoir. An international journalist and...
LitStaff Rec: Blood Will Out & Zombie Baseball Beatdown
Blood Will Out, by Walter Kirn In Preston Sturges’ romantic comedy, “The Palm Beach Story,” Claudette Colbert plays Gerry, reluctant...
Litstack Recs: Blue Nights & Lustlocked
Blue Nights, by Joan Didion Joan Didion's books have had a titanic effect on me, but when Blue Nights came out in...
LitStack Recs: The Lesson of the Master & Ordinary Grace
The Lesson of the Master, by Henry James Colm Tóibín, in his introduction to the 2007 edition of Henry James'...
LitChat Interview: Peg Alford Pursell, WTAW Press
LitStack recently sat down with writer, editor—and now indie publisher—Peg Alford Pursell, a literary community builder with a grand...
LitStack Recs: Paris Stories & Javelin Rain
Paris Stories, by Mavis Gallant In this month of celebrating the short story (#ShortStoryMonth), there must be mention of one...
LitStack Recs: Who Do You Love & Beautiful Music for Ugly Children
Who Do You Love: Stories, by Jean Thompson May is #ShortStoryMonth, and this is third in a series of LitStackRecs...
LitStack Recs: The Love of a Good Woman & The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
The Love of A Good Woman, stories by Alice Munro The short story has few practitioners as skilled as Alice...
LitStack Recs: Thunderstruck & Other Stories & Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Thunderstruck & Other Stories, by Elizabeth McCracken With April declared National Poetry Month, May is now officially Short Story Month,...
LitStack Recs: Changing My Mind & Tor.com
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays Zadie Smith This collection of essays came about by accident, Zadie Smith tells us in...
LitStack Rec: How to Read a Sentence… & The Butcher of Anderson Station
How to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish The sentence is the coin of the...
LitStack Rec: The Empty Family & The Last Witness
The Empty Family, by Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín's story collection, The Empty Family (released January 4, 2011) is one I...
LitStack Rec: The Custom of the Country & The Magicians Trilogy
The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton I knew from the start that things would go badly for Ralph Marvell....
Litstack Rec: Spielberg, Truffaut & Me and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere
Spielberg, Truffaut and Me: An Actor's Diary, by Bob Balaban In the summer of 1976, during the first weeks of...
LitStack Recs: Far From the Madding Crowd & The Lives of Tao
Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy First published in 1874, Hardy's novel of romantic entanglements and farming rural...
LitStack Rec: The Films in My Life & Planetfall
The Films in My Life, by Francois Truffaut This past week, Francois Truffaut would have turned 84. The revered French...
LitStack Rec: Bridge & A Tale for the Time Being
Bridge, by Robert Thomas “Welcome to the prayer-strewn pews of my brain,” Alice, the narrator of Bridge tells us, and...
LitStack Rec: Desperate Characters & The Terror
Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox This classic of literary fiction, first published in 1970, is also a classic example of...
LitStack Recs: Stoner & Speak Easy
Stoner, by John Williams John Williams’ 1965 novel went out of print after selling only 2,000 copies, but since its...
LitStack Rec: Examinations of Hitchock & Fangirl
A Definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock, by Francois Truffaut, trans. by Helen Scott (1966) & Hitchcock/Truffaut, a documentary film by...
2016 Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses & John Saturnall’s Feast
2016 Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses, edited by Bill Henderson with Pushcart Prize editors There are best-of...
LitStack Rec: Bird Cloud: A Memoir of Place & Moon Girl
Bird Cloud: A Memoir of Place, by Annie Proulx The memoir by this award-winning novelist (The Shipping News) and story writer...
LitStack Rec: Havanas in Camelot & A Crayon’s Story
Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays, by William Styron Though William Styron is best know for his novels (The Confessions of...
LitStack Recs: Patrimony – A True Story and Cloud Atlas
Patrimony: A True Story, by Philip Roth Roth's 1991 memoir charts the illness and death of his father, Herman Roth,...
LitStack Recs: A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople & Wayward Saints
A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople, by Patrick Leigh Fermor A classic of the travel memoir genre, A...
LitStack Recs: Cutting Teeth & Back Roads and Frontal Lobes
Cutting Teeth, by Julia Fierro When October comes, I'm always caught off guard by how quickly summer has gone. Afternoons...
LitStack Recs: A Writer’s Notebook & The Glamourist Histories
A Writer’s Notebook by Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham's A Writer’s Notebook was first published in 1949, and though his work...
Litstack Recs: The Places In-Between & The Silmarillion
The Places In-Between, Rory Stewart In 2002, Rory Stewart made a walk across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul. A scholar...
LitStack Recs: Blue Nights & Beautiful Ruins
Blue Nights, by Joan Didion Joan Didion is an author I've long revered, whose books have had a titanic effect...
LitStack Recs: Vanity Fair & The Cage
Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray The mid-nineteenth century didn’t have reality television, but it did have William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity...
LitStack Recs: Presidential Summer Reading List & Take Away the A
The Presidential Summer Reading List As The Hill reported last week, President Barack Obama chose six books to read during...
LitStack Recs: A Brief Look at Father Memoirs & Blueberry Girl
A Brief Look at Father Memoirs Stories that center on fathers have a distinct place in the memoir genre. For...
