A novel, itself a fabrication, can’t exist without poignant truths that spring to the surface through plot and characterization and detail. The post Fact or Fiction: On Vendela Vida’s ‘We Run the Tides’ appeared first on The Millions.

Writing that takes a pin and drives it through obsession’s abdomen, splaying it open like one of Nabokov’s butterfly specimens. The post Obsession, Collection, and Connection: On Pixar’s ‘Soul’ and Jazmina Barrera’s On Lighthouses appeared first on T

As she wrote Summerwater, Moss was thinking about the attitudes about public space that emerge in moments of popular nationalism such as Brexit. The post On Nature and Nationalism with Sarah Moss appeared first on The Millions.

The terrible logic of America is that our deepest nightmares and desires always have a way of enacting themselves, of moving from celluloid to reality. The post Letter from the Capitol appeared first on The Millions.

Would Gaddis have been able to write JR if he hadn’t been forced to work in PR and learn about the business and legal worlds? The post Listening to the Voices in His Head: The Millions Interviews Jim Gauer appeared first on The Millions.

Here's a quick look at some notable books—new titles from George Saunders, Mariana Enríquez, Allan Gurganus, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Saunders, Enríquez, Gurganus, and More appeared first on T

At 152 titles, this is the longest, most indulgent Millions preview ever. We could say we're sorry but we all need some joy right now. The post Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2021 Book Preview appeared first on The Millions.

Pain or terror persists in the night, but joy comes in the morning. You have to go through a gauntlet to get to joy. It’s not easily gotten or reached—or sustained. The post Celebrating What Defines Us: The Millions Interviews Joshua Bennett appeared

Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Karl Ove Knausgaard, Nnedi Okorafor, and Mateo Askaripour—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Knausgaard, Davies, North, and More appeared first on The Mi

Our own Nick Ripatrazone takes a look at six new poetry titles from the likes of Mark Wunderlich, Jackie Wang, and Allison Funk. The post Must-Read Poetry: January 2021 appeared first on The Millions.

This was, after all, the year when everything stopped making sense. The post Those Who Left Us: Select Literary Obits From 2020 appeared first on The Millions.

Slow it down, pause, take a moment. It's just five minutes, but you begin to see—the meaningfulness of small increments. The post Pandemic Life by the Numbers: The Golden Five appeared first on The Millions.

Dreaming and reading are unified in being activities of fully created, totally self-contained realities. The post On Dreams and Literature appeared first on The Millions.

I actually recommend everyone to stop taking books so seriously, so monogamously. The post A Year in Reading: Anthony Veasna So appeared first on The Millions.

I have been lucky where others haven’t, but because I am a human, I don’t feel spared. This may also be because I work at a nursing home workers’ union and the wrongness of what we do to poor people is on full display. The post A Year in Reading: Va

The drama! The agony! The misogyny! The biting social commentary! The pathos! The post A Year in Reading: Martha Anne Toll appeared first on The Millions.

At a time when I’m housebound and only my imagination is free to roam, it is head-spinning to read the phrase, “if our life is vagabond our memory is sedentary” and wonder if in our ceaseless rush forward, these are days, too, that will be indelibly

If the world had its way, trans writers would only produce journeys, and two of the most interesting books I read in 2020 wouldn’t exist. The post A Year in Reading: Davey Davis appeared first on The Millions.

I’d been out of the hospital following (let’s call it) treatment for COVID-19 about a month. My hospital ward of 50 patients had one oxygen concentrator. Despite my blood-oxygen saturation levels of 90%, that device wasn’t coming my way anytime soon.

Reading in the bathtub helped me get through many difficult times and years: since my twenties, it's been a reliable way to self-soothe. The post A Year in Reading: Sejal Shah appeared first on The Millions.

I was worried at first it would be too sexy for me, but what I loved was how unsexily domestic it got. (That's me: unsexily domestic.) The post A Year in Reading: Silvia Killingsworth appeared first on The Millions.

I probably read more student writing than anything else this year and I’m thankful for every single line of my students’ brilliant essays and poems. They write with so much hope and openness. The post A Year in Reading: Joseph Lee appeared first on

Reckless love affairs all over mid-century Europe, while a baby sucked my breast. The post Year in Reading: Katherine Hill appeared first on The Millions.

There were three new and new-to-me books of poems that unexpectedly broke something in me despite my resistance to picking up unfamiliar texts, and risking being thrust further into the emotional precariousness of 2020. The post A Year in Reading: El

I still needed to connect to other artists even though I could not see them in person. I needed to support local bookstores, and I needed language that was not my own in a desperate sort of way. The post A Year in Reading: Chelsea Bieker appeared fi

Aerosols aren’t the concern of a brain in a vat. The post A Year in Reading: Adam Wilson appeared first on The Millions.

It’s been a long year coming, and these books are in preparation for my continued healing, my large and unforgiving living. The post A Year in Reading: Mahogany L. Browne appeared first on The Millions.

I’ve thought a lot about this comment in the last several months of isolation – probably too much. The post A Year in Reading: Jacqueline Krass appeared first on The Millions.

This was the year I finally, belatedly, decided to figure out why people make such a fuss about Joy Williams. The post A Year in Reading: Bill Morris appeared first on The Millions.

I realize that every time I write a Year in Reading I’m undergoing some psychic melodrama. The post A Year in Reading: Lydia Kiesling appeared first on The Millions.