LitStack Rec: Out of Place & Landscape with Invisible Hand
Out of Place: A Memoir, by Edward Said Edward Said, the prolific author, political activist, pianist, and critic who would...
Lauren Alwan
Lauren Alwan’s fiction has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, the Southern Review, the Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, in the Bellevue Literary Review. She is the recipient of a First Pages Prize, the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, and.a citation of Notable in Best American Essays. Her essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Catapult, World Literature Today, The Rumpus, The Millions, Writer's Digest, and others. She is a prose editor at the museum of americana, an online literary review. Follow her on Twitter at @lauren_alwan and learn more at www.laurenalwan.com
Litstack Rec: Blood Will Out & Vinegar Girl
Blood Will Out, by Walter Kirn In Preston Sturges’ romantic comedy, “The Palm Beach Story,” Claudette Colbert plays Gerry, reluctant...
Litstack Rec: Barbarian Days & The Echo
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan's 2016 memoir begins with an epigraph from Edward St. Aubyn's...
LitStack Rec: Little Failure: A Memoir & Back Roads and Frontal Lobes
Little Failure: A Memoir, by Gary Shteyngart "In order for me to be born," Gary Shteyngart says early on in...
Litstack Rec: The Lesson of the Master and A Land More Kind Than Home
The Lesson of the Master, by Henry James Colm Tóibín, in his introduction to the 2007 edition of Henry James'...
Litstack Rec: The Hermit in the Garden & A City Dreaming
The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome, by Gordon Campbell You may not know it, but...
Etsy’s Book Inspired Bags
Count it as a good thing whenever books make a crossover into the everyday. And that would include this recent...
LitStack Rec – The Marriage Plot & Leviathan Wakes
The Marriage Plot, by Jeffery Eugenides “Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.” That ironic reflection comes early the...
Litstack Rec: An Unnecessary Woman & Extraordinary Adventures
An Unnecessary Woman, by Rabih Alameddine “I like outsiders,” Aaliya Sohbi tells us, “phantoms wandering the cobwebbed halls of the...
LitStack Rec: The Good Soldier & Pride’s Spell
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author selected, The...
LitStack Rec: Desperate Characters & The Last Days of Magic
Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox This classic of literary fiction, first published in 1970, serves too as a classic example...
LitStack Rec: Commonwealth & All the Birds in the Sky
Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett Of divorce, Nicole Krauss wrote, "One of us held on to the ambition of the one...
LitStack Rec: The Portable Veblen & Wait Till Next Year
The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie By way of Anne Lamott, we know the novelist Ethan Canin once remarked, “Nothing...
LitStack Rec: Stoner & Cradle to the Stage
Stoner, by John Williams John Williams’ 1965 novel went out of print after selling only 2,000 copies, but since its...
LitStack Recs: Books About Actors and Film & Ancillary Justice
As the summer film season approaches, here are three books—a memoir, a novel, and a book-length interview—that offer a look...
Litstack Recs: Anna May Wong & The Hatred of Poetry
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend, by Graham Russell Gao Hodges Don’t be misled by the tabloid...
LitStack Rec: Changing My Mind & Hunger Makes the Wolf
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith This collection of essays came about by accident, Zadie Smith tells us...
Litstack Recs: Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House & A Natural History of Dragons
Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House, by Meghan Daum The moral of this story might run...
LitStack Rec: Barbarian Days & A Taste of Honey
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan's 2016 memoir begins with an epigraph from Edward St. Aubyn's...
LitStack Rec: Bridge & The Ballad of Black Tom
Bridge, by Robert Thomas “Welcome to the prayer-strewn pews of my brain,” Alice, the narrator of Bridge tells us, and...
LitStack Recs: The Places In-Between & Vicious
The Places In-Between, by Rory Stewart In 2002, Rory Stewart made a walk across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul. A...
LitStack Rec: Out of Place & Dead Lands
Out of Place: A Memoir, by Edward Said Edward Said, the prolific author, political activist, pianist, and critic rose to...
LitStack Recs: Manhood for Amateurs & Low Town
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, essays by Michael Chabon The trope of...
LitStack Recs: The Death of the Heart & The Story of Ferdinand the Bull
The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Dig out your angora muffler and your ski gloves, because the temperature...
LitStaff Recs: This Boy’s Life & Kiss & Tell
This Boy's Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff First published in 1989, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life has since become a...
LitStack Recs: Far From the Madding Crowd & The Lost Child of Lychford
Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy Hardy's novel of romantic entanglements and farming rural life, set in fictional...
LitStack Recs: Nora Webster & Santa 17
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín At the heart of Colm Tóibín's new novel is the story of a woman, a story,...
LitStack Rec: Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures & Alif the Unseen
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub Readers captivated by Old Hollywood are sure to love Emma Straub’s debut...
LitStack Recs: Dreams From My Father & A Fort of Nine Towers
Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama Stories that center on fathers have a distinct place in the memoir genre....
LitStack Rec: The Good Soldier and Planetfall
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author selected, The...
LitStack Rec: Spielberg, Truffaut and Me & Feed
Spielberg, Truffaut and Me - An Actor's Diary, by Bob Balaban In the summer of 1976, during the first weeks...
LitStack Recs: The Foxfire Book & The Echo
The Firefox Book, by Elliot Wigginton (editor) A perfect book for #throwbackthursday, this compendium of customs and rural living practices...
LitStack Recs: Barbarian Days & Pride’s Spell
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan William Finnegan took his time writing this memoir. An international journalist and...
LitStaff Rec: Blood Will Out & Zombie Baseball Beatdown
Blood Will Out, by Walter Kirn In Preston Sturges’ romantic comedy, “The Palm Beach Story,” Claudette Colbert plays Gerry, reluctant...
Litstack Recs: Blue Nights & Lustlocked
Blue Nights, by Joan Didion Joan Didion's books have had a titanic effect on me, but when Blue Nights came out in...
LitStack Recs: The Lesson of the Master & Ordinary Grace
The Lesson of the Master, by Henry James Colm Tóibín, in his introduction to the 2007 edition of Henry James'...
LitChat Interview: Peg Alford Pursell, WTAW Press
LitStack recently sat down with writer, editor—and now indie publisher—Peg Alford Pursell, a literary community builder with a grand...
LitStack Recs: Paris Stories & Javelin Rain
Paris Stories, by Mavis Gallant In this month of celebrating the short story (#ShortStoryMonth), there must be mention of one...
LitStack Recs: Who Do You Love & Beautiful Music for Ugly Children
Who Do You Love: Stories, by Jean Thompson May is #ShortStoryMonth, and this is third in a series of LitStackRecs...
LitStack Recs: The Love of a Good Woman & The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
The Love of A Good Woman, stories by Alice Munro The short story has few practitioners as skilled as Alice...
LitStack Recs: Thunderstruck & Other Stories & Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Thunderstruck & Other Stories, by Elizabeth McCracken With April declared National Poetry Month, May is now officially Short Story Month,...
LitStack Recs: Changing My Mind & Tor.com
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays Zadie Smith This collection of essays came about by accident, Zadie Smith tells us in...
LitStack Rec: How to Read a Sentence… & The Butcher of Anderson Station
How to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish The sentence is the coin of the...
LitStack Rec: The Empty Family & The Last Witness
The Empty Family, by Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín's story collection, The Empty Family (released January 4, 2011) is one I...
LitStack Rec: The Custom of the Country & The Magicians Trilogy
The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton I knew from the start that things would go badly for Ralph Marvell....
Litstack Rec: Spielberg, Truffaut & Me and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere
Spielberg, Truffaut and Me: An Actor's Diary, by Bob Balaban In the summer of 1976, during the first weeks of...
LitStack Recs: Far From the Madding Crowd & The Lives of Tao
Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy First published in 1874, Hardy's novel of romantic entanglements and farming rural...
LitStack Rec: The Films in My Life & Planetfall
The Films in My Life, by Francois Truffaut This past week, Francois Truffaut would have turned 84. The revered French...
LitStack Rec: Bridge & A Tale for the Time Being
Bridge, by Robert Thomas “Welcome to the prayer-strewn pews of my brain,” Alice, the narrator of Bridge tells us, and...
LitStack Rec: Desperate Characters & The Terror
Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox This classic of literary fiction, first published in 1970, is also a classic example of...
