Criticism & Features

Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury) A Melissa Febos essay is the pedagogical equivalent of umami—it adds so much flavor to the classroom that it feels like cheating. Febos teaches emerging

Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha (Riverhead)  “The empire tells the stories,” Albert Samaha says early on in his compelling memoir, Concepcion, which traces the immigration of his

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Biblioasis) Before I start this review I have to go downstairs and move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son’s Memoir by Rodrigo Garcia (HarperVia) In A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes, Rodrigo Garcia, the eldest son of Nobel Prize winning-novelist Gabriel

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin (Little, Brown) “Gay bars are sites of genuine artifice,” Jeremy Atherton Lin writes in his memoir, Gay Bar: Why We

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House) Hanif Abdurraqib’s hybrid book, A Little Devil in America, reflects on a life and

Memorial by Bryan Washington (Riverhead) When we first meet the young couple at the heart of Bryan Washington’s Memorial, Mike, a chef, has just told Benson, a daycare worker, that

Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley (Scribner) You have that just right: Amy Stanley tells the story of how Edo became Tokyo

Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future by James Shapiro (Penguin Press) Although William Shakespeare lived long before England’s unruly colony tossed

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House) New York Times journalist Wilkerson gained national fame (and an NBCC award) for The Warmth of Other Suns, an