It isn't often that you find a book that just begs you to read it aloud, but Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs is that kind of rare treat. Literature nerds and music geeks will love Erik Didriksen's infectious mash-ups of Shakespearean verse and Top-40 hits from the last several decades. Take, for … Continue reading Pop Sonnets: A Review
In the early 2010s, Korean-American journalist Suki Kim taught English at North Korea's Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. In Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite, Kim recalls the events of those few months. The story is incredible. For more than 70 years, while its southern … Continue reading Without You, There Is No Us: A Review
It's rare that a book's title tells you exactly what it is about. There are almost always secrets, or even outright lies. I mean, Fight Club is about so much more than a bunch of bros beating each other up, and Gone Girl --- what the hell does that even tell you? In this regard, … Continue reading Almost Famous Women: A Review
Upon its publication in 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay on growing up black took the U.S. by storm. University of Southern California professor Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric is Between the World and Me's lesser-known cousin, but this book-length poem is just as relevant and important as Coates' work. Rankine's poetry details years of micro-aggressions … Continue reading Citizen: A Review
I was first introduced to Natasha Allegri's Bee and PuppyCat in a rather unlikely place: Facebook Messenger. Having never heard of Allegri's webseries, I assumed the poofy-haired girl and her cross-looking pet/sidekick were from an aeni or manhwa. It wasn't until I bought Bee and PuppyCat, Vol. 1 in a Humble Comics Bundle that I … Continue reading Bee and PuppyCat, Vol. 1: A Review