Welcome to the first installment of a new column where Millions readers can sound off on the books they’re currently reading. Tell us about what you’re reading—hot takes always welcome—and you might just end up in next month’s column. * Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth (1966) I wanted to celebrate Barth’s life by exploring more of his work, and am...

A hiker who sets out from the half-timbered German village of Schrierke intending to scale Brocken Mountain—the snow line still visible at the last dusk of April when the clover blooms crimson, the vetch is already blue, and green leaves are again on the elms and sycamores—might experience the “specter” associated with that peak, wherein backscatter...

What is the point of memoir? And why might an author choose to process their life experiences through that particular form instead of, say, fiction or poetry? In this conversation, debut memoirists Shze-Hui Tjoa and David Martinez reflect on what the form means to them and their respective books, The Story Game, an interrogation of memory, childhood,...

We’re attempting to unravel the tangled web of literary influence by talking with the great writers of today about the writers of yesterday who inspired them. This month, Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli, author of such books as Lost Children Archive and The Story of My Teeth, explores the new translation of Juan Rulfo’s landmark text Pedro Páramo. ...

We’re thrilled to reveal the cover for Sam Sax‘s forthcoming debut novel Yr Dead, slated for August 6.  Here’s a bit about the book, courtesy of McSweeney’s: In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezras ever loved, every place they ve felt queer...

In her new memoir Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen, Suzanne Scanlon recounts the years she spent in New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital. In chapters oscillating between memoir and criticism, Scanlon narrates her own experience while disassembling notions of madness, recovery, patienthood, diagnosis, and the asylum. She situates her story...