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The Last Book I Loved: Brown Girl, Brownstones
My dreams, for so long unrestrained by land, air, or even death—and frequently including scenes of me tumbling through the air on glossy black feathered wings or jumping into an abyss with a smile on...
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“Ghana Must Go,” by Taiye Selasi
Setting much of the plot in Ghana Must Go—Taiye Selasi’s engaging first novel about two African immigrants and their children—in Boston was an clever choice: A hilly colony established by English...
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How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
“That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort … something about himself … that no...
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Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
I was first introduced to blogger Allie Brosh’s “Hyperbole and a Half” when I started library school. The illustrations, rendered in a throwback Mac application, were wry and occasionally...
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The Race Underground by Doug Most
“It’s better to wait for the Devil than to make roads down into hell.” – Christian Wolford, The Subterranean RailwaySummer is here. Ninety degree temps in most cities, north and south, humidity, ice...
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The Rumpus Interview with Sarah Manguso
Poet Sarah Manguso’s newest book is so short, I was able to read it twice, which is impressive because she covered what felt like a lifetime in so few words. Ongoingness is a distilled memoir that...
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On Pain
1.There is pain in the Kentucky mountains, from which an ever-diminishing cache of coal is drawn. Factory work has dried up, but it left injuries—a break here, a crush there. Some people’s bodies throb...
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Know the Mother by Desiree Cooper
Shortly after I started reading Know the Mother—a slim volume of flash fiction by former attorney and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Desiree Cooper—my grandmother died of ovarian cancer. This was...
View ArticleThe Mothers by Brit Bennett
By the time Aubrey Evans, one of the three main characters of Brit Bennett’s The Mothers, whispers “Tell me a secret” to her budding paramour, I realized that I had been privy to so many secrets in the...
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