A House For Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul This past week, we lost a giant when V.S. Naipaul died in London at the age of 85. My rec this week looks at his 1961 novel, “A House for Mr Biswas,” which has appeared in different posts here at LitStack over the years. “A House for [….]
Sometimes, it isn’t all that difficult to sort out what will happen in a novel. It does, of course, depend solely on “who” you’re reading and, perhaps, your personal ability to pick up hints, to notice what has been foreshadowed. But sometimes, when the plot is thick and the author is clever, smarties among the [….]
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott “The truth is,” Alysia Abbot writes in her debut memoir, Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, “I did want to be my dad’s poem. I wanted to be his drawing, his novella, his most refined work of art. I wanted him to shape me with his [….]
Arranged Marriage: Stories, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Acclaimed poet, novelist, and story writer Chitra Banerjee Divrakaruni’s first book of fiction was published in 1995, and the eleven stories in Arranged Marriage demonstrated her gift for chronicling female cultural dislocation and the compound identities that come with leaving one place—with its engrained customs and beliefs—for another. [….]
It’s happened to you before. You’re invested in a great book, in the flux and flow of a twisting plot, of multidimensional characters that make you mad, make you cry, maybe even make you scream out loud. Then, after all the hours you’ve invested in the book, all the possibilities, the hopes, the resolutions that [….]
From my reading of the past year, some favorites—here a memoir-in-essays and three story collections. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee “Writing is a way of going to the depth of Being,” wrote Marguerite Yourcenar, and in the sixteen essays that make up Alexander Chee’s 2018 memoir, the author dives deep, [….]
TITLE – Nailed Down SeriesAUTHOR – Chelle Bliss and Eden ButlerGENRE – Contemporary RomanceGIVEAWAY – Audio CDs of Nailed Down and Tied Down (US Only)SUMMARY – Nailed Down (Book One) Kit Carlyle isn’t just some woman. Beautiful? Yep. Seductive? Damn straight. She’s also my best friend and my co-worker. But, hell, I’m a guy with [….]
TITLE- Blackbird Summer AUTHOR-Em Shotwell GENRE-Fantasy GIVEAWAY- One signed paperback copy of Blackbird Summer SUMMARY Meet Tallulah. Gifted. Magical. Cursed. When the world fears you, being Gifted is a curse. In the cornerstone of the rural south, Brooklyn, Mississippi, no one dares make eye contact with the strange Caibre family. Until the rewards are worth [….]
TITLE- The High Court AUTHOR- Christopher Ledbetter GENRE- Fantasy GIVEAWAY-One signed copy of to US readers. SUMMARY High atop Mount Olympus, as dawn breaks on a new academic term, normalcy returns to campus following a harrowing expedition into The Underworld to rescue kidnapped students. Zeus and his fellow Olympians now prepare to testify in The [….]
My Misspent Youth, essays by Meghan Daum My introduction to Daum and her essays was Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, her account of wanting, finding, losing and finding the ideal home. It’s a memoir of coming into one’s own in regard to matters of money—real estate, mortgages, income and outflow. [….]
