Opinions
A struggle to get past the first chapter: Are university students really forgetting how to read?
Universities are supposed to be a bastion of high learning and enlightened thinking; the fact that many people turn up to these respected institutions without the ability to meet lofty challenges suggests something is very wrong with the state of education.
Review: Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga, trans. Mark Polizzotti
The novella moves between storytellers and versions of history, delivering a story that could never fit into a single truth or archive box.
Review: The Last to the Party by Chuqiao Yang
With this promise and its dubious comparison, Yang opens up her world of cultural memory, her geographic and emotional landmarks, and uncertain-yet-loving family relations.
Review: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang
Ultimately, this is the merit of Babel: its timelessness and applicability in modern-day politics.
Review: All This and More
The grim implications of All This and More have a lot of room to build on, and Shepherd committing to the sinister endings makes for very entertaining reading regardless of which one a reader lands on.
Review: Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience
When you pick up this book, keep your wits about you, you will need them.
Self-mortification: Why I just can’t stop embarrassing myself
Mortification is the defining emotion of my childhood. I don’t mean to say I was unhappy, but I think it’s true that the psychological impact of mortification (by which I mean a kind of lingering, self-inflicted embarrassment) is uniquely acute.
Review: The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
The Leftover Woman embraces a range of topics with great emotional weight, including motherhood, adoption, abuse, and the hostility of the United States to undocumented immigrants, all of which together do make a reader truly hope for a kind resolution…
