We are firmly entrenched in 2019 now and, as such, we thought we would tell you what ZYZZYVA recommends this month—a roundup of the works we’ve been reading, watching, and listening to: Katie O’Neill, Intern: This holiday season, one of the best gifts I received was Hannah Sullivan’s debut collection Three Poems. The winner of the 2018 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, the collection is comprised of three long poems – “You, Very Young in New York,” “Repeat Until Time,” and “The Sandpit After Rain.” Quoting from and referencing Phillip Larkin, Claude Monet, and Joan Didion, among many others, the […]
Category: What We’re Reading
Catching Up on the Classics: A ZYZZYVA Staff Reading Roundup
by ZYZZYVA Staff
Sadly, there are only so many hours in a day. For even the most diligent among us, it can be difficult to stay on top of all the classic books that demand to be read. Here at ZYZZYVA, we took this rainy San Francisco January as the perfect excuse to sit down and finally catch up on some of those iconic works our staff has missed out on (at least until now): Laura Thiessen, Intern: With the New Year comes new resolutions. Unfortunately, most of them fail by the time we turn the calendar page to February. Perhaps it might be better […]
Stories Told in Shadow: What We’re Reading This Halloween
by ZYZZYVA Staff
San Francisco’s most cherished holiday—that’s right, Halloween—is nearly upon us. That means it’s colder and darker outside before you know it, so what better excuse to curl up in bed with a (frightfully) good book? In keeping with the spirit of the season, we’ve assembled a list of recommended reads that might just help you keep warm, that is, if they don’t chill you to the bone. Laura Cogan, Editor: The dehumanizing violence of American racism and white power is the horror at the heart of Hari Kunzru’s novel, White Tears. I read it earlier this year, as a part of […]
Off the Beaten Path: ZYZZYVA’s Summer Travel Reads
by ZYZZYVA Staff
Since the summer is a time especially suited for travel, we’ve put together a collection of the ZYZZYVA team’s favorite works centered on the subject. Ranging from books thematically concerned with journey to ones that are simply perfect for reading in transit, we hope these picks will transport you––from an armchair at home or from one exciting locale to another. Caleigh Stephens, Intern: A word of advice to those embarking on road trips or other travels this summer—give a second thought before hurtling down that seemingly abandoned dirt path in rural Georgia at the behest of a grandmother’s nostalgia. However, don’t hesitate to pay a visit to the […]
What We’re Reading this Women’s History Month
by ZYZZYVA Staff
March represents Women’s History Month and, as such, we thought we would share a brief overview of some of the women we’ve been reading as of late, which includes a group of authors operating within a myriad of genres and hailing from a number of locales. We hope this collection serves as just a small sampling of the dynamic work being done by women in literature and non-fiction today. Laura Cogan, Editor: “No one knew the real story but me,” declares one of Joan Silber’s exquisitely drawn characters near the end of Improvement. It is both a brag and a burden this character bears—and a […]
Reflections in an Uncertain Era: ZYZZYVA Looks Back at Our Favorite Reads in 2017
by ZYZZYVA Staff
We can think of a lot of words to describe 2017, but “trying” would certainly be one. If you’re anything like the team at ZYZZYVA, you’ve found yourself reaching for book covers new and familiar as both a source of comfort and intellectual edification during these tumultuous times. As 2017 winds to a close, we thought we would take a look back at some of the titles that proved most memorable for us. What was your favorite book you read this year (whether it was published in 2017 or not)? Feel free to share in the Comments section. Bjorn Svendsen, Intern: In Thrill Me: […]
Voices from the Dark: Some Recommended Horror Reads
by ZYZZYVA Staff
With the approach of Halloween, we polled our staff and contributors about which literary works of horror (or of just plain ol’ spookiness) they’d like to point our readers to. From the progenitor of the macabre short story, Edgar Allan Poe, to the psychological stylings of Shirley Jackson and Joyce Carol Oates, these works display a keen understanding of the utter fragility of the human mind. It may be a well-worn genre, but horror retains its power to effectively probe our darker impulses and explore cultural traumas: Paul Wilner, ZYZZYVA Contributor: I generally stay away from horror literature – it’s a […]
ZYZZYVA Labor Day 2017 Playlist
by ZYZZYVA Staff
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for the first ever ZYZZYVA Labor Day Playlist! Here you’ll find a series of songs our staff chose for their resonance in this fraught (and often emotionally exhausting) moment. Music is always an essential source of inspiration and solace, and these are some of the songs we’ll be listening to over this long weekend. We hope you may enjoy them, too, perhaps in the background of your holiday barbecue, or after the guests have departed when you’re left with some quiet moments of contemplation. And who knows, maybe we’ll have to make the ZYZZYVA […]
Summer Reading ZYZZYVA Staff Roundup
by editor
It’s that time of year when some people hit the beach while others hit the bookshelves. Here’s a look at what the ZYZZYVA team has been reading these last few months in order to beat the “heat” of summer in San Francisco: Laura Cogan, Editor—What is it about summer that makes a thriller especially enticing? Is it the contrarian in me, looking perversely for some shade to counteract the sunny aesthetic of the season? There may be some anecdotal evidence to support this theory, at least in my case: I was visiting the preternaturally well-appointed Marin Country Mart a few weeks ago—a place […]
A Reading List for These Dark Times
by me
When Donald Trump announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination last June, the whole production had a farcical air. The surreal sight of his too-long descent down an escalator, magnified by the hired actors awkwardly cheering him on the entire way, elicited ridicule. His baldly racist nativism was beyond the pale even for dog-whistle Republican politics, and immediately earned him the ire of the GOP establishment. His speech, generally incoherent even as it gave voice to legitimate grievances, didn’t do him any favors; if he couldn’t even articulate a platform, how was he going to run a serious campaign? Pundits […]