by envisionmg | Oct 15, 2020 | Michelle Recommends, Staff Picks
Washington Irving’s work and autumn in New England go hand in hand. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is perhaps Irving’s best-known work (likely competing only with Rip Van Winkle for that title), most people having either read the story or encountered one of...
by envisionmg | Aug 20, 2020 | Michelle Recommends, Mystery
I have Harper Perennial’s Olive Editions to thank for the prompting nudge to finally start this series. That shorter than the typical mass market paperback, nicely typeset, drenched-in-red edition of Death at La Fenice caught my eye, but after finishing the...
by envisionmg | Jul 16, 2020 | Audiobooks, Fiction, Michelle Recommends
The real crime here is that Forever and a Day appears to be the only audiobook actor Matthew Goode* has narrated. Though imagined—imagined because I cannot know, of course, if he has or hasn’t been thought of—perhaps an even more egregious crime is that not a...
by envisionmg | May 22, 2020 | Michelle Recommends, Non-fiction
“Combining memoir with artistic and philosophical musings, the poet and National Book Critics Circle Award winner (for My Alexandria) begins by confessing his obsession with the 17th-century Dutch still life that serves as the title of this book. As he analyzes...
by envisionmg | Apr 20, 2020 | Michelle Recommends, Poetry, Poetry Collections
The Spring 2019 issue of The Paris Review served as my introduction to Franny Choi, in the form of “Amid Rising Tensions on the Korean Peninsula.” I was floored by that poem. Even after reading it untold times I remain astonished by that poem. Shortly...
by envisionmg | Apr 13, 2020 | Essays, Michelle Recommends, Poetry
Along with Pagie Lewis’ Star Struck, Abdurraqib’s A Fortune For Your Disaster was another one of my favorite collections released in 2019. (His previous collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, might be one of my favorite collections full-stop.) The...
