Carine didn’t have a clue that this might be coming, but she wasn’t entirely surprised. The bus, which sat roughly 20 miles down a rough 4×4 trail from the nearest highway, had been a source of concern to Alaskan authorities for years. Too many visitors, inspired by her brother’s story, had gotten into trouble while attempting to visit the site; too many formal and informal rescues had been necessary. In the previous decade, in separate incidents, two young women died on their treks. Both drowned while attempting to cross the cold, fast-moving Teklanika—the same river that had barred Chris, who was 24 when he died, from retreating to the highway as his food supply ran out.
In the eerily quiet early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed that someone in the local government had decided that now was the time to remove the temptation of the bus for good.
The seed of inspiration for author Grace Lin’s ninth and newest children’s book was actually planted almost 20 years ago, right after the release of her 2004 book “Fortune Cookie Fortunes.” She found that in so many cases, when speaking about fortune cookies, people would say, “Oh, fortune cookies aren’t really Chinese . . . with some sort of disdain or disgust. Lin added “as an American-born Asian person who has struggled with her identity . . . I could easily see the same words about me.”
So, Lin took it upon herself to “show this kind of food some respect,” though she says that it took her many years to ultimately put this book together because she needed to find self-acceptance in her own identity before she could make it.
In a world where tech billionaires dominate so much of our culture, it’s troubling to see books treated like mere vessels for self-betterment the way that cold-water therapy and Fitbits are. Some of us enjoy fiction. And color.
Men no longer drop dead as readily as they did a century ago, and can remain in charge for what seems like forever. If modernity has meant challenging the elderly, demanding that they share their power and resources, then our postmodern age is one of their most successful re-enthronements.
Abernethy is building the bristlecone clock to run for the next five millennia, the estimated lifespan of the hardiest trees in the Great Basin. If the clock serves its intended purpose as a philosophical instrument, people will turn away from it much sooner than that. As the clock unwinds, people will direct their temporal gaze to the environment shared with all other life on Earth.
Everyone knows by now that a virus can bring a nation to its knees — the tiny terrorists of smallpox, Spanish flu and COVID-19 have disrupted America’s story in lethal and tragic ways. But what if one small glitch in a virus’ makeup changed everything? What if the smallpox that raged through America’s Native population had been replaced by a less lethal variant? What if Native Americans survived smallpox, fought white invaders to a standstill and created their own version of a modern society?
This is the premise of Francis Spufford’s dazzling new novel, “Cahokia Jazz.” Spufford, an award-winning British writer, tells an intricate, suspenseful and moving story that rises from the mists of America’s prehistory and morphs into an alternate version of America’s story. Part world building, part detective noir, part savage critique of our country’s (real) history, Spufford builds his creation on the foundations of a real place that grew, thrived and then vanished.
But the major point of Sharlene Allsopp’s debut is that nothing should be seen just one way.
Covering topics ranging from the deliciousness of that twist in “Gone Girl” and the joy of Amish romance novels to the semester she spent decoding George Saunders’s “Lincoln in the Bardo,” Reed — who teaches writing and contemporary fiction at the University of Pittsburgh — chronicles her lifelong relationships with books and reading.
Underlying each essay, though, is a conviction that people should read what they want to read. The latest Emily Henry book, “Moby-Dick” and tomes on U.S. history, she explains, all offer value to the reader.