Unpacking the Hidden Parts – “Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative”
For this LitStack Rec of "Body Work," we unpack the hidden parts of memoir. Lauren Alwan recommends you buy and...
LitStack Recs
5 Outstanding Linked Story Collections Perfect for Short Story Month
For this LitStack Rec, we are celebrating Short Story Month by singing the praises of the linked story collection and...
Hiding a Perilous Truth in James Tate Hill’s “Blind Man’s Bluff”
For this LitStack Rec, we're revisiting James Tate Hill's engaging and unique memoir, Blind Man's Bluff (2021). We're anticipating James'...
Celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month with 7 Great Books
These novels, story collections, and works of nonfiction by Asian American and Pacific Islander authors mine loss, grief, and the...
The “Wheel of Time” and My Complex Relationship with the Epic Series
This LitStack Rec not only examines character building but also some of the challenging aspects of gender portrayal in the...
A Poem Opens Between Two Languages in “O” by Zeina Hashem Beck
This LitStack Rec celebrates April's National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month by recommending the luscious and beautiful book...
Blurring Fiction And Actual Events In “The Hero Of This Book,” By Elizabeth McCracken
Our Litstack Rec Of The Hero Of This BookBlurring The Line Between Fact And FictionA True Story Built On InventionA...
Inspiring You to Keep Up with Alan Cumming – Revisiting “Not My Father’s Son”
What’s Up, and What’s Coming for Alan Cumming?Rejecting the OBELive Cabaret ActIn League with Professor SproutTime to Revisit Not My...
An Inspiring Read for National Poetry Month | “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”
A Story Deepened by a Poetic SensibilityA Legacy of Mixed HeritageSeeing Personal History Through the Prisms of War and ErasureThe...
A Brilliant 10 for “Linesman” – Revisiting Ean Lambert’s Singing in the Novel by S.K. Dunstall
LinesmanS. K. Dunstall*Ace BooksRelease Date: June 30, 2015ISBN 978-0-425-27952-6 The Best Books are Timeless. Is Linesman?You Need to Get One...
Give Your Soul and Grit to Daisy Jones & The Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The right song, at the right time, with the right person. The Essence of Daisy JonesThe Seventies are BackThe Mercurial...
Stanley Tucci’s Taste: My Life Through Food & Six of Crows
Taste: My Life Through Food, a memoir “Cook. Smell. Taste. Eat. Drink. Share. Repeat as necessary.” For better or worse,...
Three Classic Irish Writers to Read on St. Patrick’s Day & Wintering
Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin Toibin’s 2009 novel, recipient of the Costa Award, is an affecting and haunting story set in...
Litstack Recs | Three Memoirs for Women’s History Month & The Terraformers
For #WomensHistoryMonth, here are three memoirs that portray a range of women's lives, from mid-century summers in Brittany, to pre-9/11...
Litstack Recs | Three Great Short Story Collections for Women’s History Month & Monarca
Three Great Short Story Collections for Women's History Month For #WomensHistoryMonth, here are three classic story collections by women who...
Litstack Recs | The Candy House & Born A Crime
The Candy House: a novel, by Jennifer Egan This intricate novel of futurism, connection, love and attachment—like the social media...
LitStack Recs | Nights & The Ballad of Black Tom
Nights, by Joan Didion Blue Nights is a counterpart to Didion’s 2005 memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, which tracks...
LitStack Recs | We Need New Names & The UnAmericans
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo NoViolet Bulawayo's powerful novel of the life of a young girl from Zimbabwe,...
Litstack Recs | Whereabouts & Slay
Whereabouts, a novel, by Jhumpa Lahiri This melancholy and stylish novel, Jhumpa Lahiri’s third, marks a tonal and literary departure....
LitStack Recs | The Clothing of Books & The City & the City
The Clothing of Books, by Jhumpa Lahiri “How do you clothe a book?” is how this small, but powerful volume...
Litstack Recs | Spare & The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Spare, by Prince Harry The phenomenon known as Spare is barely a week old, but the memoir by Prince Harry,...
Litstack Recs | The Dead Fish Museum & Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
The Dead Fish Museum: Stories, by Charles D’Ambrosio Of Charles D'Ambrosio and his 2006 story collection The Dead Fish Museum,...
LitStack Recs | Tinkers & Pet
Tinkers, by Paul Harding Paul Harding's Tinkers, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, tells of George Washington Crosby, a...
Litstack Recs | Favorite Reads of 2022 & Project Hail Mary
A Few Favorite Reads of 2022 A brief wrap-up of some of the books I loved reading this past year....
Litstack Recs | As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride & The Snow Child
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride—by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden and a foreword...
LitStack Recs| The Marriage Plot & The City Inside
The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides “Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.” That reflection comes early in Jeffrey...
Litstack Recs | Jerusalem: A Cookbook and All Our Wrong Todays
Jerusalem: A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Some cookbooks are defined by a generation. Your grandmother’s shelf likely...
Litstack Recs | Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays & Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith As an essay reader, and writer, I always hope to make a...
Litstack recs | Joseph Anton, by Salman Rushdie and The Burning Light, by Bradley P. Beaulieu and Rob Ziegler
Joseph Anton: a memoir, by Salman Rushdie Joseph Anton was published in 2012, but no memoir may be more relevant...
Litstack Recs | Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman & The Grind
Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman, with a foreword by Emma Thompson. Edited by Alan Taylor “Of all the...
Litstack Recs I Reading Like a Writer & Twisted Fairy Tales
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by...
LitStack Recs | Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Tales of Horror & Till the End
Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Tales of Horror, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto In their introduction to Tiny Nightmares:...
Litstack Recs | The Refugees, Stories by Viet Thanh Nguyen & The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
The Refugees: Stories, by Viet Thanh Nguyen The Sympathizer, the debut novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, won the Pulitzer Prize...
litstack Recs | How Fiction Works & Shadow Run
How Fiction Works, by James Wood. When it comes to books on the craft of writing, I tend to gravitate...
Litstack Recs | Desperate Characters & Project Hail Mary
Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox Desperate Characters, recent edition. This classic of literary fiction, written in 1970, is also a...
Litstack Recs | A Wrinkle in Time & Sisters
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, a rec for #BannedBooksWeek This classic novel, number 23 on the American Library...
Litstack Recs | The Sheltering Sky & The Space Between Worlds
The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles Bowles is one of my favorite writers. His prose is stark yet rich, with...
Litstack Recs | We the Animals & Kitchens of the Great Midwest
Called "a dark jewel of a book," by Michael Cunningham, We the Animals, the 2011 debut novel by Justin Torres,...
Litstack Recs| How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One & We Were Dreamers
For writers and readers, the sentence is the coin of the realm, the catch that keeps a reader securely in...
Litstack Recs | The Wrong End of the Telescope & Company Town
The Wrong End of the Telescope: a novel by Rabih Alameddine Rabih Alameddine’s sixth book, which earlier this year won...
Litstack Recs | Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden & The Last Wish – Introducing the Witcher
Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden, by Eleanor Perényi Writing and gardening share similarities: the same dogged tending, the...
Litstack Recs| The Love of a Good Woman & The Red
The Love of a Good Woman, stories by Alice Munro The short story has few practitioners skilled as Alice Munro,...
Litstack Recs | The Films in My Life & Six-Gun Snow White
The Films in My Life, by Francois Truffaut We are lucky that Francois Truffaut was both a prolific filmmaker and...
Litstack Recs | Two titles from WTAW Press & Ninefox Gambit
Two Titles From WTAW Press The Groundhog Forever, by Henry Hoke In Henry Hoke's debut novel, two film students in...
Litstack Recs | The Good Soldier & If You Build It…
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author selected, "The...
Litstack Recs | The UnAmericans & All the Horses of Iceland
The UnAmericans: Stories by Molly Antopol There’s a literary lineage to the strands of Jewish American literary tradition, contemporary and...
Litstack Recs | Less & A Wild Sheep Chase
Less, a novel: by Andrew Sean Greer Less, the author's sixth book and fifth novel, is a jewel-box of a...
Litstack Recs | Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father & Time Salvager
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott “The truth is,” Alysia Abbott writes in her debut memoir, Fairyland:...
Litstack Recs | The Custom of the Country & The Resisters
The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton I knew from the start that things would go badly for Ralph Marvell. He’s...
Litstack Recs| A Writer’s Notebook & Dog Days
A Writer’s Notebook by Somerset Maugham Like most writers, I keep a notebook—not a journal, but a record of ideas,...
