A Meditation on Exclamation Marks in Contemporary Poetry (!)
“I always got the exclamation mark at the end— / a mere grimace, a small curse.” Luljeta Lleshanaku, in her poem “Negative Space,” writes how she...
Book Riot’s Deals of the Day for June 27th, 2019
Sponsored by The Protectorate Wars: Born Hero by S.A. Shaffer These deals were active as of this writing, but may expire soon, so get them while...
The Case of Yiyun Li
The effort of self-transformation is generally regarded as an improving journey, whatever its vicissitudes may have been. The writer Yiyun Li, who left China in 1996...
The Image America Shouldn’t Need
There is a common belief that immigration reporting humanizes immigrants or inspires empathy. But I’m beginning to wonder if we’re simply a country desensitized to these...
Webster’s Acrobatics
To the Editors: In his review of Peter Martin’s The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight Over the English Language, neither Christopher Benfey nor Martin apparently mentions...
Motherhood Has Always Been Political—Now, Books About It Are, Too
America is a country that claims to love mothers and thinks they’re doing the most important job in the world, but also kind of wants mothers...
A Death Reverberates Through Two Marriages in “Late in the Day”
Tessa Hadley is a writer who knows how to elevate the universal hunger for belonging — to ourselves and to each other — into something sacred. To belong is to...
8 Books That Show What Life Was Really Like for Women in Victorian Times
Maybe you like a good bodice-ripper. It’s okay if you do—own it. But it nags at you: how hard is it really, to rip a garment...
30 New Beginnings Quotes for Your Fresh Start
We’ve just hit the halfway mark of the year, and just like how the weekend seems aeons away on hump day, it feels like I’m crawling...
Literary Characters That I Would Bring As My Wedding Date
It’s wedding season, and I am here for the perfect date. The ideal wedding date is elusive, but any of the following literary characters bring interesting...
