Curated by: SARAH WHELAN
We can’t believe that we’re on the brink of publishing our FIFTEENTH Issue! If you couldn’t make it to our Launch Party, you can still mingle with our Issue 15 contributors in this month’s Friday Reads. When you’re done reading, be sure to purchase your copy of Issue 15 here!
Recommendations: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, In Full Velvet by Jenny Johnson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry by Anne Carson, The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
Friday Reads is like a box of chocolates: there’s something for everyone, even the weirdos who read scripts! This month, sample an autobiographical novel, a collection of love poems, and a modernist play.
Recommendations: A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz, Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
Once again, The Common and Amherst College are honored to welcome a selection of visionary authors to our third annual LitFest–a weekend long series of events celebrating literary brilliance and nuanced expression. The talks, workshops, and panels will include, among other voices, 2017 National Book Award Finalists. This month, our staff and interns have chosen their reading in anticipation of our guests, and we present here our thoughts on just a few of these dazzling works. For more information on LitFest, please visit the Amherst College website.
Recommendations: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz.
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
This month, our Issue 14 contributors are reading works that examine the seams of time, from the construction of a fleeting impression, to the scaffolding of a historical drama. Whether it be a poem read from a pulpit or a paperback fished serendipitously from a pile of freebies, these recommendations celebrate literature’s ability to break through temporal boundaries.
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
Whether you’ve already read Issue 14 twice or you’ve been stealing guilty glances at the untouched copy on your night stand, enjoy a little bonus content from our Issue 14 contributors! This month, our recommendations probe the supposed linear formation of our lives by questioning how we conceptualize our tasks, societies, and time itself. Poetic, comedic, and tragic, these reads shed light on contradictory forces often taken for granted.
Folks, it’s September. Time to stow away that summer beach read and pull out the award-winning tome that’s going to get you noticed by the cute grad student in the coffee shop. This month, read about starkly different economic and cultural worlds existing side by side. As the poor and the rich, the colonizer and the native shift uneasily along slippery fault lines, these recommendations offer brutal looks at friction between and within communities. Harrowing and insightful, you’ll be so engrossed you won’t even notice the number written on your to-go cup.
Recommendations: Tales of Two Americas edited by John Freeman, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, and News of the World by Paulette Jiles.
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
This month, in response to a world that appears to be split across slippery fault lines, our interns are recommending books that explore cultural unity and interconnectedness. With attention to language, power, racism, and sex, these books ask the reader to reconsider her place in time as an intimate moment in a wider web of humanity.
Recommendations: Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong, The Power by Naomi Alderman, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, and All the Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler.
Ah, July Friday Reads, where the temperatures are high and the stakes are even higher. This month, read alongside Issue 13 contributors and our managing editor as we face devastating epidemics, maternal death, and the eternal angst of feminine adolescence. Though each book finds a uniqueness in its approach to calamity, each work uses the minute details to capture the universal perils of love, loss, and loneliness.
Recommendations: Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante, The Girls by Emma Cline, and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante, recommended by Megan Fernandes (poetry contributor)
We love any excuse to hear from our contributors! This month, our Issue 13 authors and poets tap into their literary communities as they recommend works by colleagues, friends, and Pulitzer Prize winners. United in their affection, the authors are nonetheless divided by their selections, as their choices shed light upon nowhereness, colonization, and Florida oranges.
Recommendations: Notes on the Inner City by George Szirtes, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Quiet American by Graham Greene, and Chinatown Sonnets by Dorothy Chan.
Notes on the Inner City by George Szirtes, recommended by U. S. Dhuga (poetry contributor)
For May’s Friday Reads, we tapped a few Issue 13 contributors to find out what they’re reading. Their recommendations are diverse and complicated, dealing with hefty subjects—from mourning and the fear of death to geological history. If you haven’t read their works in Issue 13, it’s time to get started.
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