In our afternoon reading: interviews with Dipika Mukherjee and Sheila Heti, musical recommendations from Bruce Adams, and more.
Morning Bites: Revisiting James Welch, Dashiel Carrera Excerpted, Dwyer Murphy on Noir Fiction, and More
In our morning reading: revisiting James Welch’s work, thoughts on Sheila Heti’s new book, and more.
Morning Bites: Sheila Heti on Fiction, Story Prize Winner, Spiritualized Interviewed, and More
In our morning reading: interviews with Sheila Heti and Spiritualized, indie press recommendations, and more.
Morning Bites: Sara Nović Fiction, Sheila Heti Interviewed, Revisiting Kay Dick, and More
In our morning reading: fiction by Sara Nović, recommended books in translation, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Gabrielle Civil’s Recommendations, Rob Hart’s Mystery, Sheila Heti’s Fiction, and More
In our afternoon reading: book recommendations from Gabrielle Civil, thoughts on Sheila Heti’s new novel, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Sheila Heti’s Latest, Beach House Interviewed, Thom Yorke’s Book, and More
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on Sheila Heti’s new novel, an interview with Beach House, and more.
Lack of Colour Here: On Sheila Heti’s “Pure Colour”
With Sheila Heti’s new novel Pure Colour, Heti paints a setting of living in the “first draft” of the world. We enter the novel in the “moment of God standing back,” between this first draft and whatever will come next in the second. My first instinct was to call it a mess—but this actually makes sense, because Heti is attempting to portray to readers a first draft of creation, which is also a mess. The author is capturing the feel of a world that is also filled with idiocy and miracles, at once. While there is a skeleton of a storyline— most of the plot in Pure Colour is filtered through the main character, Mira—the surrealist and philosophical conversations in this novel feel like both a departure for, and distinctly marked as, Heti’s work and captures something true about the times in which we are living.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s February 2021 Book Preview
According to rodent-based prognostications, we’re in for six more weeks of winter. So if the pandemic wasn’t keeping us inside, the weather just might. It’s never a bad time to get some reading done, but — this might be a better time than usual, is what we’re saying. And so, some book recommendations; heavy on the fiction this month, and heavy on the surreal side of fiction at that. Here are some suggestions for when you head to the bookstore in the coming weeks.