We missed the month of April in our monthly recommendations, so here’s a quick post to catch-up on everything we might have recommended. Plus some early May knockouts. Plus a cultural shift or two. Cowboy Carter – Beyoncé Cowboy Carter dropped at the tail end of March, and it would’ve been my rec for April […]
Tag: novel
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin Perhaps no other author has painted a whole portrait of a young man as James Baldwin has in Go Tell It on the Mountain. Baldwin begins and ends the story with John Grimes, the stepson of a violently abusive Baptist preacher, on the day of his […]
Anatomy of a Fall dir. Justine Triet The first half of Anatomy of a Fall, the recent film from French writer and director Justine Triet, tells you many times over what it will not do. When the central character (and suspect) Sandra tells her lawyer Vincent that she is innocent, he says (if a little […]
At the beginning of the new year, our writers gathered to discuss our reading goals for 2024, and the conversation devolved from there. Here is a brief collection and transcription of our discussion. It has been edited for length and clarity. EU: Eugene EL: Elise P: Peyton On reading goals: EU: In terms of reading […]
Close Read has been writing and recommending for a year now, and what is the one month we skipped? The one month that represents two of our writers (not a small number–that’s 66.66666etc of staff)? We were so focused on finding something different to write about for Pride that we never wrote, well, anything. (What […]
Game Changer via Dropout The comfort of the game show is that you have the same set-up every time. Perhaps, like your classic game shows, you keep spinning the wheel and asking for vowels. Or perhaps the challenge changes every episode, but they’re all still based in physicality or strategy, all working within the same […]
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner My April recommendation is the continuation of last month’s. I read the second book in the Queen’s Thief series, The Queen of Attolia. This book, just like the first, had me enthralled by storytelling, specifically the way that the author masterfully conceals information from the reader. I […]
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte No matter how well-established and iconic a piece of literature is, nothing compares to reading it for yourself. In the case of Wuthering Heights—yes, the classic by Emily Bronte—all I knew were a few of the romantic lines, which deeply unprepared me to the utter insanity of this novel. Don’t […]
The Banshees of Inisherin, written and directed by Martin McDonagh Movies are created about the everyday and the universal but rarely the banal, simply because movies need to be entertaining. The Banshees of Inisherin accomplishes both: it manages to be entertaining by way of tackling the banality of our lives and showing us the heartbreak […]
The Woman King directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood When I first saw previews for The Woman King, I will admit that I was very skeptical of its success. Honestly, the title was kind of strange to me, and while it was clear Viola Davis was going to serve, you can never count on the writing to […]
