Reading for Reading’s Sake: Bill Walton’s Book List and the Joy of Reading in a WALL-E World
Books are finally losing to BookTok. This is the age of abundance in which we are experiencing the truncation of everything.
On Exhibitions: Writing About Race
The moral here isn’t simply that writing about race as an author of color is good. I’d argue that it’s crucial. We risk forsaking ourselves if we avoid it.
More Book Reviews
From Text to Tapestry: The Graphic Novel Adaptation of The Raven Boys
The trees speak Latin. Spirits rise again on ley lines. A long-dead Welsh king sleeps in Henrietta, Virginia. In Maggie Stiefvater’s wonderfully mystical world of The Raven Boys, all of these details—and more—have gripped readers for over a decade.
The Sound of Miles
First, let me preface this review by noting that I am not big on the auditory; I use my ears but think with my eyes. I read before I listen.
Meaning and mortality in kaveh akbar’s MARTYR!
This tender story unfolds with enough levity to balance out the weight of its existential themes. Akbar maintains this delicate balance well by seamlessly transitioning between witty dialogue and philosophical discussions, alongside chapters told from the perspectives of other characters.
Commentaries
Reblog: A Chronically Online Girl’s Take on Mass-Produced TikTok Literature
Cannibalism as a metaphor for love. There are claw marks in everything I’ve ever let go of. Persephone’s pomegranate.
Fabled Fiction: Ella Enchanted
The novel, in its own regard, emphasizes the importance of unification through communication and language, while the film adaptation embraces a more direct, allegorical framework of modern politics. Both iterations have the potential to make real-world connections and leave readers and viewers alike inspired.
Queerness and the American Family: A Meditation on Silence
I always thought my family read more like a novel than a television series. We demanded a certain seriousness, a maintained attention for nuance that does not translate to the screen.
Short Fiction
She Who Hears the Suffering of the World
Everything here was new, from this country to her husband, to her baby. Everything except Mei.
Variations of Summer
It’s a hot, humid summer the summer before high school, and I’m back in Guangzhou, a city at once all too familiar and foreign. The perennial hazy sky, green and blue and yellow taxis speeding down the street, laundry airing on balconies.
Petal heart
Phoebe, like everyone, has a peeling heart. At age 23, Phoebe would call it a tearing, ripping, yanking heart… It is a part of growing up, this she knows. But still, it hurts.
Personal Essays
People We Meet Once
Most of our lives are composed of small exchanges, so brief they barely register as events. I thought memory belonged to the people who stayed. To friends, lovers, classmates, names saved in contacts. But slowly, quietly, strangers began proving me wrong.
(Re)Tracing Paths
There is a whole world out there, one which is changing me every day, one which I am determined to change in return. I stand in the doorway, and I move through it.
Literary London: An English Major’s Guide
What initially led me here was my fascination, hedging on obsession, with English literature. Having long studied and loved the novels and poetry from across England’s history, I simply had to come here for myself and hopefully find inspiration the same way my favorite authors did.
Interviews
Interview with the Author: Joan Sung on Family, Writing, and her New Memoir, Kinda Korean
I have been writing since as long as I could remember. Back in the early nineties, I would write on my dad’s old typewriters and word processors. I enjoy being able to be unfiltered, to let my feelings and thoughts flood pages.
Interview with the Director: Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
After wandering the UC Berkeley campus in search of a place to record, Karen Canfield and I settle into a building every English major is extremely familiar with: Wheeler Hall. We find a quiet alcove on the top floor and begin our conversation.
Talking with Tavi Gevinson
You need different things to feel like you know characters in a film than you need if you’re reading a graphic novel.
Visuals
Art: Of the Places We’ll Go
The following two pieces are part of a four-piece series titled Of the Places We’ll Go. Death, Then Life, Arami Matevosyan You never claimed residency on earth. Somehow the idea of mortality was never enough—you wanted to live through the fruits of the next couple…
Artwork: Wakey Wakey
I’m not much of an artist—or really, any of an artist. I can’t draw, can barely read my own handwriting, and if I paint it looks like a bird took a technicolor shit. But I like Photoshop—the files, clicking, filters: it’s technical, but meritocratic. Here,…
Artwork: Baby Birds
Oh what soft sweet merriment That carries with it such a beauteous glint In the hearts of all those who feel its wonder To cross their paths to make them ponder On the love that dwells In their souls as deep as wishing wells Upon…
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