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What are we reading in July? Quentin Tarantino and Rainbow Rowell

Even for Tarantino loyalists, the first 100 pages of his
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood novelization are a slog. All the criticisms that skeptics lobbed his way for years pop off the page. Without his stable of actors, the mentions of other movies, directors, and stars (as well as the return of his casual use of the N-word, thankfully omitted from the film) grate against the eyes, the novel reading more like an attempt from one of Tarantino’s imitators, or worse a Wikipedia entry, than the genuine article. But then something happens. As the book unfurls, Tarantino’s rhythms settle, and his skills as a novelist emerge. He’s able to reimagine his cinematic history the way he reimagined actual history, and this dime-store paperback becomes impossible to put down, even if you’ve seen the film a dozen times. Tarantino stages a total rework. Characters Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt in the movie) become more unlikable (as

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What to read June 2021: ¡Hola Papi!, Kink, and more

What to read June 2021: ¡Hola Papi!, Kink, and more
avclub.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from avclub.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.

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Work Won't Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe, plus more books we're reading in May

The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up conversations about labor conditions across the American economic spectrum, from hourly employees opting out of low-paying, physically punishing restaurant jobs to salaried staff members realizing that they’re not working from home—they’re living at work. What an opportune time, then, for labor reporter Sarah Jaffe’s
Work Won’t Love You Back, which was released by Bold Type back in January. Jaffe’s mission is to break down the late-capitalist ethos of “doing what you love,” a concept that she argues sets people up for overwork and exploitation rather than true pleasure in one’s daily activities. This critique applies to the insidious 18/6 schedule of “hustle culture,” as well as giant corporations pressuring employees to accept indignity after indignity under the guise of “family.” But Jaffe’s analysis goes further, dividing 10 types of work, from housekeeping to professional sports, into two broad categories. First are “caring professions” like teaching and retail work that are supposed to come naturally to women, and therefore aren’t considered worthy of a high salary. Second come “labors of love” like art and computer programming, traditional realms of the solitary male “genius” that are framed as more of a spiritual calling than an economic necessity. (The problems with both types of work are, of course, exacerbated by race, as Jaffe details in the chapter about immigrant domestic labor.) Jaffe lays the blame for both traps on the neoliberal policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, advocating for a return to early-20th-century modes of labor organizing to unite workers of all types in order to better their lives. [Katie Rife]

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The Life Of The Mind by Christine Smallwood, more books we're reading in April

Despite what publicists and jacket-copy writers might have you believe, there are way more readers out there who appreciate, and even prefer, novels in which not a whole lot happens. “Page-turner” needn’t only apply to the action-filled or plot-driven. That’s not to say that things don’t happen in Christine Smallwood’s
The Life Of The Mind (March 2, Hogarth), which centers on English adjunct Dorothy in the days and weeks following her miscarriage due to a blighted ovum. (The writer structured her novel around the prolonged, intermittent bleeding of her main character, who views her body with a matter-of-fact curiosity.) Dorothy grades papers, rides the subway, attends a literary conference. Scenes set around a karaoke party and an underwater puppet show (!) are given the kind of symbolic weight one might more likely see in short fiction. As with so many exemplary novels in which plot is not the driving force, the main attraction of

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What are we reading in March? Kazuo Ishiguro, Paisley Rekdal, and more

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The Onion is where Jen Spyra cut her teeth (and, full disclosure, shared office space with this writer) before contributing to publications like
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What are you reading in January?

by Ijeoma Oluo
To be clear, there never was and never will be a time when Ijeoma Oluo’s new book
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy Of White Male America (Seal Press) isn’t relevant. But reading history-rich analysis of white male supremacy and its toxic repercussions from the author of
So You Want To Talk About Race on the same week that the living personification of white grievance stormed the U.S. Capitol was like finding the key in the back of a fantasy novel: Suddenly, the labyrinthine gibberish started to make sense. Throughout the book, Oluo lifts the hood on institutional racism and sexism, breaking down everything from how white backlash to Reconstruction influenced widespread housing discrimination—and, in turn, racial wealth gaps—to online “brocialists” and their allergy to female power. (Hint: White male identity politics are still identity politics.) One by one, Oluo holds up parts of these complex and insidious engines, demonstrating for readers how each piece, as she puts it, “works by design.” One-star reviews of

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