If there’s one thing Michael Arceneaux isn’t, it’s coy. His second collection of essays, I Don’t Want to Die Poor, minces no words as he talks about the dire financial straits he found himself in after college and the various ways debt has made his life harder. Through that lens, he talks in about sexContinue reading “‘Don’t Want to Die’ Isn’t Poor on Prose”
Tag Archives: Food for thought
Rolling in ‘The Deep’
On my TBR is The Deep. No author, but it’s in with the 2019 stuff, so I wasn’t worried about finding it. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there were actually two books titled The Deep published in 2019 and both look like something I’d put on my TBR list. Since I couldn’t remember which one I meantContinue reading “Rolling in ‘The Deep’”
More Nightmare than Dream in ‘House’
I’ve been recommending Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House to people for months. To the classmate trying to find a way of writing a memoir of her time in the Air Force without resurrecting her past too much. To the colleague arguing that Choose Your Own Adventures weren’t an effective form of storytelling. To theContinue reading “More Nightmare than Dream in ‘House’”
Want Nightmares? Try ‘Infidel’
I love graphic novels. Love ‘em, love ‘em, love ‘em. When I was a kid, I’d look over the comics in the newspaper every day even though I didn’t yet know how to read. When I got older and inherited my uncle’s mouse-nibbled stash of superhero and Archie comic books from the 1970s, that loveContinue reading “Want Nightmares? Try ‘Infidel’”
Character, not Plot, Drives ‘Pachinko’
This one’s been on the list for a while, but I finally got to the tragic darling that I got on the digital library hold list for, like, seven months ago. (At a certain point, I probably should have just bought it, but I’ve been busy living in a global pandemic and all.) As itContinue reading “Character, not Plot, Drives ‘Pachinko’”
Aging and Loss With Arms Wide Open
One of the most frightening things about growing older is the uncertainty: which terrible ailment(s) will I or my loved ones suffer with in their twilight years? Will my body be ravaged by time or will I lose my mind? Both? Neither, because I’ve planned on going out with a bang a la Secondhand Lions?Continue reading “Aging and Loss With Arms Wide Open”
Let ‘Lotus’ Break Your Heart – and Mend It
Almost from the very beginning of Lotus, a novel by Lijia Zhang that focuses on a Chinese prostitute (or ji) at the turn of the century, I could see a million different ways that the titular character’s heart was going to get shattered. What I didn’t see, and what I could not have anticipated, wasContinue reading “Let ‘Lotus’ Break Your Heart – and Mend It”
Ring Reads 