Although I was raised without a religion, for more than half my life I’ve been involved in meditation and yogic communities. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly
Welcome to small-town Connecticut, a place whose inhabitants seem to have it all. There’s Tripp and Virginia, beloved hosts whom the community idolizes, whose basement hides among other things a secret stash of guns and a drastic plan to survive the end times. There’s Gunter and Rachel, recent transplants who left New York City to raise their children, only to feel imprisoned by the banality of suburbia. And Richard and Margot, community veterans whose extramarital affairs and battles with mental health are disguised by their enviably polished veneers and perfect children. At the center of it all is the Petra School, the most coveted private school in the state, a supposed utopia of mindfulness and creativity, with a history as murky and suspect as our character’s inner worlds.
If you are a Gen Xer like me and you wax nostalgia about the freedom of the mothers of your childhood vs. the shackles of parenting in the early twenty-first century as I have, Kim Brooks’ book is for you. Kim made the most grievous error a parent can make today: she left her four-year-old in her minivan in the parking lot of a rural Target so she could quickly grab an item. Though her child was fine, someone called the police. This event sent Kim down a rabbit hole to find out: is the American childhood as dangerous as people think? Her remarkable, thought-provoking book argues that childhood is remarkably safe, children should be exploring their environs, and some form of free-range parenting for many parents and kids should be the norm rather than the exception. This has been my philosophy since having children, and I was happy to read a smart, sober book validating my beliefs.
One cool spring morning, Kim Brooks made a split-second decision to leave her four-year-old son in the car while she ran into a store. What happened would consume the next several years of her life and ultimately motivated her to begin writing about the broader subject of parenthood and fear. In Small Animals, Brooks asks, Of all the emotions inherent in parenting, is there any more universal or profound than fear? To be a parent is to be afraid. And yet, the objects and intensity of our fear vary based on culture, temperament, and the historical moment in which we…
This gripping novel is based on the 2012 murder case in New
York City in which two children were stabbed to death by their nanny. From the
first gripping sentence, “The baby is dead” until the last, this psychological
thriller set in Paris never lets up with a fast pace and smart sentences. I
loved this book. Although it portrays my worst fear, it does so with
sophisticated empathy for all involved. As NPR said about the book, “In
Slimani’s hands, the unthinkable becomes art.” I devoured it in two days.
She has the keys to their apartment. She knows everything. She has embedded herself so deeply in their lives that it now seems impossible to remove her.
One of the 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR of The New York Times Book Review, by the author of Adele, Sex and Lies, and In the Country of Others
"A great novel . . . Incredibly engaging and disturbing . . . Slimani has us in her thrall." -Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger
"One of the most important books of the year. You can't unread…
It’s the 1950s and in spite of the staid conservative
culture of the times, Anne Wheeler and her husband Frank have artistic
aspirations. When they move from New York City to Connecticut, they struggle to
hold on to their identities. Anne is adrift, starring in amateur suburban theater
and keeping house and Frank is working long days in a job he hates. When their
plans to move to Paris are derailed, the result is tragic. This horror adjacent
novel is single-handedly the main reason I never settled in Westchester or
Connecticut—opting for a funky Hudson Valley village instead—and was a big
influence on my own novel.
Hailed as a masterpiece from its first publication, Revolutionary Road is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright young couple who are bored by the banalities of suburban life and long to be extraordinary. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April's decision to change their lives for the better leads to betrayal and tragedy.
In the late 1990s I arrived in New York City to work in
publishing. For a certain period of time my salary was so low and my luck so
bad, I wound up homeless. This 2020 Kirkus Prize-winning debut novel of a twenty-something Black woman working in publishing and financially flailing felt
familiar and real to me. She begins an affair with a white man who lives with
his wife and their adopted Black daughter in New Jersey and after she loses her
job, moves in with the couple. Her sentences dazzle with wit and psychological
insight. Kirkus called it "Sharp,
strange, propellant—and a whole lot of fun."
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020 A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Shondaland, Boston Globe, and many more!
"So delicious that it feels illicit . . . Raven Leilani’s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or…
I listened to this novel while gardening during the pandemic and
found it utterly absorbing and heartbreaking. It surprised me with its twists
and turns, humor, and pathos. Roy and his wife Celestial are newlyweds in
Atlanta living a life of ordinary young marriage challenges, planning to have
children, and what career moves to make. After Roy is falsely accused of a crime, found guilty, and sentenced to
twelve years in prison, the two must find a way to move forward after the
American Dream for them is shattered. The sophisticated, stirring novel asks
the question, what does one spouse owe another when the state takes away their
freedom? By turns heartbreaking, funny, and wise, American Marriage was an
Oprah pick and long-listed for the National Book Award. A year ago I did an
event with Tayari and probably gushed over this novel to the point of personal
embarrassment!
I am a fiction writer and currently live in Cairo, where I have lived for over twenty years. I noticed that the way I started telling stories was influenced by learning Arabic and by listening to the stories of the people in the city. My interest in Arabic also led me to read Arabic literature, like A Thousand and One Nights.
Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo — magical, absurd, and humorous.
The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. We also meet the two protagonists of McCullough's Confessions of a Knight Errant, before their escapades in that story.
These stories are told in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights.
Shahrazad's Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo-magical, absurd and humorous. The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. We also meet the two protagonists of McCullough's Confessions of a Knight…
