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Literary calendar for week of Dec. 3
FITZGERALD IN ST. PAUL: Fourth in the discussion series featuring Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, hosted by poet/baker Danny Klecko, concentrates on “The Ice Palace.” One of the St. Paul-born author’s most famous stories, published in 1920, it’s about a Southern belle who visits her fiance’s emotionally cold family during the Winter Carnival and fears she…
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Paul Lynch Feared His Novel Would End His Career. It Won the Booker.
“Prophet Song” has earned comparisons to dystopian classics like “1984.” But Lynch downplays the book’s political message. This book, he says, was deeply personal. When Paul Lynch started writing his novel “Prophet Song,” he worried it might destroy his career. The story — an unsettling dystopian parable — was stylistically daring, relentlessly dark and more…
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Hard Truths About Suffering, From a Writer Who’s Lived to Tell
In “Zero at the Bone,” Christian Wiman offers a welcome tonic: poetic and philosophical reminders of how to get through troubling times. ZERO AT THE BONE: Fifty Entries Against Despair, by Christian Wiman “One grows so tired, in American public life,” Christian Wiman writes with sudden invigoration, “of the certitudes and platitudes, the megaphone mouths…
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The Critics’ Picks: A Year in Reading
The Book Review’s daily critics — Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai — reflect on the books that stuck with them in 2023. Jennifer Szalai Since I review only nonfiction, I sometimes get tasked with writing about political memoirs — a number of which are geared toward getting you to believe what their politician-authors…
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Season for Sharing: Teachers’ Treasures library reflects students’ languages, identities
Kevin Wells happily copped a cartful of school supplies after tooling around a former Kroger grocery store on the east side of Indianapolis recently. “There is a plethora of stuff here,” he said, as he pulled a pack of red ink pens from a shelf. “I always use red pens!” The total cost for the…
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Give the gifts of these Columbia and mid-Missouri authors this holiday season
Scouring best-of lists and literary gift guides — including the Tribune’s own — will aid the giver caring for the book lovers in their lives. But don’t forget to look around for local authors, whose latest words can draw readers even further into their immediate literary community. Here are just six of many 2023 books — and one…
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New book to look at Limerick’s Protestant community during the country’s revolution
A NEW book will take a deeper look at the experiences of Limerick’s Protestant community during the nation’s revolutionary period. It will feature a new collection of essays edited by Dr Seán William Gannon, Limerick City and County Library Service, and Dr Brian Hughes, Department of History, Mary Immaculate College. The collection of essays is…
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The best books to give as presents this Christmas
Ann Patchett Author of Tom Lake (Bloomsbury) I’ll be wrapping The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (Orion), a novel that takes place at the intersection of the Black and Jewish communities, which turns out to be a grocery store. This is James McBride (always fabulous) at his very best. The second book I’ll give is…
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Alison Flood’s best crime novels and thrillers of 2023
Thanks to the success of the likes of Richard Osman and Lucy Foley, this was a year when we couldn’t move for cosy crime novels or locked room mysteries (or locked island or snowed-in ski lodge, you get the picture). Celebrities turning to crime (fiction) have also been thick on the ground, with everyone from…
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Rachel Cooke’s best graphic novels of 2023
This hasn’t been a vintage year for comics; a certain grimness clung to many of those that came my way. But still, I read some good ones from big names and small, and Camille Jourdy’s beautiful and adorable Juliette ranks among the three books I most enjoyed in 2023, of whatever kind. Blankets: 20th Anniversary…