Well, the honest answer to “what Michael Phelps and I have in common” is, practically nothing. He’s a young, strong, elite athlete with a whole slew of resources at his disposal. I’m a dumpy, almost-past-middle-aged woman with a teeny-tiny safety net that I was able to cobble together over my […]

LitStack Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Published on :Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Haruki Murakami Translated by Philip Gabriel Alfred A. Knopf Publication Date: August 12, 2014 ISBN 978-0-385-35210-9 Once upon a time, there were five very close friends who attended public high school in Nagoya, Japan – three boys and two girls. They did […]

LitStack Review: On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
Published on :On Such a Full Sea Chang-Rae Lee Riverhead Books Release Date: January 7, 2014 ISBN 978-1-59448-610-4 Sometimes dystopian fantasies set in our future are terrifying because of the utterly foreign and frightening effects we have heaped upon ourselves; a dire tolling of funereal bells or a teeth-gnashing drudgery in which […]

LitStack Review: Vacationland by Sarah Stonich
Published on :Vacationland Sarah Stonich University of Minnesota Press Release Date: March 25, 2013 ISBN 978-0-8166-8766-4 Vacationland is a book that grabs you, not because of some harrowing drama or gripping plot twist, not due to a flamboyant cast of characters or unexpected turn of events or even because ordinary people have […]

LitStack Review: Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood
Published on :Bodies of Water T. Greenwood Kensington Books Publication Date: September 24, 2013 ISBN 978-0-7582-5093-3 In an interview with the San Diego Reader, author Tammy Greenwood talked about getting caught by Hurricane Irene while visiting her family in Massachusetts in August 2011. “We were totally stranded. I couldn’t drive through the […]