After spending a year convalescing, 14-year-old Ella finds herself changed. Her left leg is weak, leaving her with a limp and requiring her to wear a special shoe. Being around a lot of people is overwhelming, which makes crowding into the Underground every night to shelter from air raids nerve-wracking—especially because the tunnels trigger memories […]
Half a century ago, a young Ugandan, expelled from the country for being of Asian origin and a refugee in England, refused to be relocated from London to a distant camp, saying, “We protest at being treated as objects or, at best, as cattle.” This affords development economist Easterly a starting point addressing the question […]
Amore, co-author of Stealing Rembrandts (2011) and head of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, here describes the colorful life of Myles Connor, a rock musician who turned to a life of crime throughout New England in the 1960s and ’70s. The author details many of Connor’s early exploits, including impersonating an […]
Maven Blackthorn hasn’t been home since her mom died under suspicious circumstances 12 years ago, but the death of her grandmother, Lorinda, forces her return to Solstice, Vermont. Maven’s daughter, Beatrix, has never seen where her mother grew up, but she quickly learns the Blackthorns have a reputation for witchcraft, largely fueled by a centuries-long […]
After a meteor crashes near Vincennes, Indiana, a cockroach-like, gigantic kaiju crawls out and starts causing mayhem; the U.S. military dubs it the Palmetto Bug Monster. A second behemoth soon appears in Alaska—a massive creature akin to a gecko, which surfaces in a dormant volcano. It’s the latter kaiju—regrettably referred to by authorities as “He-Knew-Pat-Sajak,” […]
After the influx of refugees from the ongoing genocide, Dževahira Torlak, who goes by Seka, lives in besieged Srebrenica with her parents, grandparents, older brother, her mother’s sister and sister-in-law, as well as an uncle and two young cousins. Her family has taken in two refugees, Edina Muharemović and her son, Ramo, who is Seka’s […]
The legacy of feminist author Anzaldúa (1942-2004) looms large. Her groundbreaking book Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) remains a touchstone for generations of scholars and activists. An editorial note explains that Anzaldúa had been developing her “Prieta stories” alongside nonfiction for her whole career. While a few came out during her lifetime, this book represents their first complete publication. […]
“The sacred bones of a literary culture [are] being ground into dust by technology and AI and many other distractions,” writes essayist Allen. To help remedy this decay, she offers a set of appreciative essays on canonical European and Anglophone writers, focusing on the personalities of writers and how fictional and historical characters interact to […]
Enid, who’s nearly 70, is no stranger to grief, having lost her brother at a young age, but nothing prepares her for the death of her husband, Hugo.The two built a quiet life together, marked by pleasant morning coffees and strolls through the local grocery store. As they grew older, however, they came face-to-face with […]
Among the many scars left by the Holocaust remain the gaping grounds and bulldozed squares where houses of Jewish worship once stood. More than sites of faith, these buildings were community centers, nodes for family and social life. And in their shape and size, the European synagogues were structures unique to a time and place. […]