Litstack Recs | Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays & Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith As an essay reader, and writer, I always hope to make a...
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Now Available| THE GREAT BOOK OF KING ARTHUR by John Matthews
Available now, from leading Arthurian authority John Matthews and Tolkien illustrator John Howe, comes the definitive collection of stories about...
Litstack Recs| How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One & We Were Dreamers
For writers and readers, the sentence is the coin of the realm, the catch that keeps a reader securely in...
Creating Your Own Mythology
My friend, Dave Robison, spoke recently of creating his own mythology and it got me thinking. As writers, when we’re...
In Praise of Difficult Genre Fiction
A while back I was fortunate to read, in close succession, three masterful works in the science fiction/fantasy genre that...
Litstack Recs | The Wrong End of the Telescope & Company Town
The Wrong End of the Telescope: a novel by Rabih Alameddine Rabih Alameddine’s sixth book, which earlier this year won...
Litstack Recs | Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden & The Last Wish – Introducing the Witcher
Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden, by Eleanor Perényi Writing and gardening share similarities: the same dogged tending, the...
Litstack Recs| The Love of a Good Woman & The Red
The Love of a Good Woman, stories by Alice Munro The short story has few practitioners skilled as Alice Munro,...
Litstack Recs | The Films in My Life & Six-Gun Snow White
The Films in My Life, by Francois Truffaut We are lucky that Francois Truffaut was both a prolific filmmaker and...
Litstack Recs | Two titles from WTAW Press & Ninefox Gambit
Two Titles From WTAW Press The Groundhog Forever, by Henry Hoke In Henry Hoke's debut novel, two film students in...
Litstack Recs | The Good Soldier & If You Build It…
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author selected, "The...
Litstack Recs | The UnAmericans & All the Horses of Iceland
The UnAmericans: Stories by Molly Antopol There’s a literary lineage to the strands of Jewish American literary tradition, contemporary and...
2022 Locus Awards Announced
Congratulations to the winners of the 2022 Locus Awards, announced on Saturday during the virtual Locus Awards Weekend. MCed by...
Litstack Recs | Less & A Wild Sheep Chase
Less, a novel: by Andrew Sean Greer Less, the author's sixth book and fifth novel, is a jewel-box of a...
Litstack Recs | Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father & Time Salvager
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott “The truth is,” Alysia Abbott writes in her debut memoir, Fairyland:...
Book Launch and Excerpt: Trouble With the Cursed by Kim Harrison
ABOUT TROUBLE WITH THE CURSED Congratulations to Kim Harrison on the launch of the latest title in her Hollows series, Trouble...
Litstack Recs | The Custom of the Country & The Resisters
The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton I knew from the start that things would go badly for Ralph Marvell. He’s...
Litstack Recs| A Writer’s Notebook & Dog Days
A Writer’s Notebook by Somerset Maugham Like most writers, I keep a notebook—not a journal, but a record of ideas,...
Litstack Recs | Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life & Monarca
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan’s 2016 memoir begins with an epigraph from Edward St. Aubyn’s...
Litstack Recs | How to Write an Autobiographical Novel & When Women Were Dragons
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays, by Alexander Chee "Writing is a way of going to the depth of...
Litstack Recs | The Drifters & Pacific Storm
The Drifters, by James Michener In middle school, I was curious about the 1971 bestseller on my mother's bookshelf, but Not...
Litstack Recs | Without: Poems & The Kaiju Preservation Society
Without: Poems, by Donald Hall It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or what time of day or night it is,...
Historical Fiction: WorldBuild an Era, Not a Year
There’s a scene in Reality Bites (1994) where the main characters sing Scholastic Rock songs after their college graduation. The...
Litstack Recs | On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous & Life On Mars
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, A Novel by Ocean Vuong “One does not ‘pass’ in America, it seems, without English.”...
Litstack Recs| Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend & A Song for a New Day
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend, by Graham Russell Gao Hodges For fans of Anna May Wong,...
Litstack Recs | The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries & A Natural History of Dragons
The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries, by Emma Thompson With Sunday's 94th Academy Awards coming up, here's a look...
Independent Press Awards 2022 Filling My TBR List
Dear LitStackers, the Independent Press Awards 2022 have been awarded and my TBR list is filling up with titles from...
Litstack Recs | Shout Her Lovely Name & 10:04
Shout Her Lovely Name, by Natalie Serber In the title story to Natalie Serber’s debut story collection, the narrator offers...
Litstack Recs | The Empathy Exams & Age of Ash
The Empathy Exams: Essays, by Leslie Jamison The Empathy Exams is a hybrid work of memoir, literary, cultural, and moral...
Litstack Recs| Out of Place: A Memoir & God’s War
Out of Place: A Memoir, by Edward Said Edward Said, the prolific author, political activist, pianist, and music critic, rose...
Litstack Recs| Arranged Marriage & The Unfamiliar Garden
Arranged Marriage: Stories, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The eleven stories in Arranged Marriage reveal Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s gift for chronicling...
Setting Is Character
Setting is character. That’s what a wonderful writer friend of mine, Robin LaFevers, told me when I was struggling with...
Practical Advice for Beginning Writers
I’ve been writing since I was a kid. (That’s a very long time. I’m old, y’all). Being a published writer...
Litstack Rec | The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs & The Dead Lands
Among the terrific releases from indie publishers this month is Leslie Kirk Campbell’s debut story collection, The Man with Eight...
Litstack Recs | This Boy’s Life & Wintering
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff First published in 1989, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life has since become a...
Review | The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs: stories by Leslie Kirk Campbell
The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs, stories by Leslie Kirk Campbell Sarabande Books (February 1, 2022)Paperback, 240 pagesEAN/UPC -...
Litstack Rec | The Coast of Chicago & Northernmost
The Coast of Chicago: Stories by Stuart Dybek I can still recall first reading Stuart Dybek’s classic short story “We...
Litstack Recs | The Portable Veblen & The Other Americans
The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth Mckenzie By way of Anne Lamott, we know the novelist Ethan Canin once remarked, “Nothing...
Litstack rec | Tinkers & Sistersong
Tinkers, by Paul Harding Paul Harding's Tinkers, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, tells of George Washington Crosby, a...
LitStack Recs| Fairyland & The Once and Future Witches
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott “The truth is," Alysia Abbot writes in her debut memoir, Fairyland:...
A Spectacular Decade – the Expanse Series Closes with Leviathan Falls
As an avid science fiction reader, in 2011 I picked up a copy of James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes, a...
My Favorite Reads of 2021
Six memorable debuts of literary fiction and nonfiction Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phlllips In Julia Phillips’ 2019 debut, two sisters...
Litstack Recs | Little Failure & Light from Uncommon Stars
Little Failure: A Memoir, by Gary Shteyngart "In order for me to be born," Gary Shteyngart says early on in...
Editor Joe Illidge on the Evolution of Graphic Novels
When I browsed my local library today, I saw something that never would have existed when I was a kid...
Litstack Recs | Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures & The Last House on Needless Street
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, by Emma Straub Those captivated by Old Hollywood will surely love Emma Straub’s debut novel,...
Cover Reveal: Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
Congratulations to #1 New York Times bestseller Victoria Aveyard on the gorgeous cover reveal of book two in her Realm...
Litstack Recs | Light Years & The Expanse Series
Light Years, by James Salter First published in 1975, this novel is considered among James Salter's most enduring. Known for...
Litstack Recs | The Oysters of Locmariaquer & A Spindle Splintered
The Oysters of Locmariaquer, by Eleanor Clark Late in Eleanor Clark’s extraordinary book, she tells us the oyster needs the...
Litstack Rec |How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One & Frankie & Bug
How to Read to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish When I'm reading, the sentence...
The “Tide Child” Trilogy: Hope on the Brutal Seas
Time wears away at memory, it leaves behind what was important, and you were happy. That is what remains. The...
