Annalisa Quinn

Annalisa Quinn appears in the following:

In 'Dust Bath Revival,' The True Fantasy Is A World Without Shame

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Marianne Kirby's new novel is set in an America overrun by zombies — and also an America in which no one is judged on their appearance; her protagonist is fat and queer, and never hindered by that.

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Know Thyself? 'Swing Time' Says It's Complicated

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

The narrator of Zadie Smith's new novel is never named — fitting, for a book about the illusions of identity and the ways people try and fail to know and define themselves.

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'Float' Will Lift Your Mind Out Of Its Rut

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Anne Carson's unconventional collection of 22 chapbooks can be read in any order, and covers everything from Helen of Troy to H.G. Wells — but mostly, it's about women taking back their own stories.

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In 'Table Manners,' A Rather Mannered Plea For Etiquette

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Renowned chef Jeremiah Tower focuses on the consumption rather than the preparation of food in Table Manners. The book leans fussy and prim, turning a blind eye to hosts and hostesses short on cash.

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Ordinary Black Lives Are What Matter In 'The Mothers'

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Brit Bennett's new novel focuses on two best friends, both motherless, growing up in a black community in Southern California — and their shifting, lifelong negotiation with the idea of motherhood.

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'Cloudbound' Is Stunning, But Doesn't Quite Soar

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Fran Wilde built a glorious world of living bone towers and wing-gliding people in last year's Updraft. Her new Cloudbound has stunning skyscapes but lacks some of the first book's emotional heft.

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Love Shifts The Self In 'The Lesser Bohemians'

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Eimear McBride's latest follows a young drama student who goes to London and falls for an older man. Her live, wriggling language makes a beautiful account of the ways the self is built and rebuilt.

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'Commonwealth' Doesn't Need Big Drama To Draw Us In

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Ordinary family life provides all the tension and attraction in Ann Patchett's new book. The story of two families and a fateful party that upends both, it draws on Patchett's own life experiences.

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A Bookish Mind At Play In 'Nutshell'

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Ian McEwan's fetal Hamlet is an extravagant spirit confined to the womb while his mother and uncle plot. But he is no sweet prince; the book stumbles over the unborn Dane's grumpy cultural commentary.

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'A Gentleman In Moscow' Is A Grand Hotel Adventure

Saturday, September 03, 2016

Amor Towles' new novel stars a Russian aristocrat, sentenced by the Soviets to permanent house arrest in a luxury hotel. It's a frothy romp that tends to overlook the reality of life under Stalin.

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Counting The Cost Of Medical Advances In 'Patient H.M.'

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Luke Dittrich's new book is part pop science book, part medical ethics essay and part family history: His grandfather was the surgeon who originally cut into the brain of the celebrated Patient H.M.

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Investigating Complicated Family Myths In 'I'm Supposed To Protect You'

Thursday, August 04, 2016

Nadja Spiegelman is insightful about the power and malleability of memory in her new memoir, but the book is weighed down by an aggressively artificial poignancy, all ashtrays and meaningful silences.

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'You Will Know Me' Says No, You Won't

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Megan Abbott's novel about a talented young gymnast and her mother starts with a mysterious death, but the real mysteries are the characters themselves: You never really know the people close to you.

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Gay Talese Stays Too Long At 'The Voyeur's Motel'

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Gay Talese conflates the journalist and the voyeur in his new book about a motel owner who spied on his guests. And he makes the readers voyeurs as well: We watch him watching the unwary motel guests.

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'The House At The Edge Of Night' Is A Comforting, Familiar Place

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Catherine Banner's new novel takes familiar tropes — it's a multigenerational family saga set in Sicily, and yes, there's limoncello and dancing in the piazza — and makes them fresh and inviting.

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'I Am No One:' Feels Like Somebody's Watching Me

Thursday, July 07, 2016

In Patrick Flanery's new novel, the border between mental illness and justified paranoia grows porous as average guy Jeremy begins to fear he's under surveillance. But is he? It's never quite clear.

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Gay Talese Disavows His Disavowal Of His New Book

Friday, July 01, 2016

Talese had told The Washington Post he wouldn't promote his new nonfiction book, The Voyeur's Motel, after the paper found flaws in its story. But now he says the book will go ahead as planned.

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A Toast To The Toast, The Site That Was Just For You. Yes, Even You

Monday, June 27, 2016

The Toast — the funny, literary feminist website, gleeful kneecapper of high culture, center of cheerful misandry, and habitat of the courteous commenter — is closing. We have an appreciation.

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Annie Proulx's 'Barkskins' Is Lovely, Dark, and Deep

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Annie Proulx's epic new novel is a multigenerational, multi-century epic about the fall of forests before human depredation — just don't think about how many trees went into its 700-plus pages.

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Yes, All Men (And Everyone Else) Need To Read 'Sex Object'

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Jessica Valenti's powerful new memoir examines the toll sexism takes on women's lives. Sex Object doesn't offer solutions; instead, it bears witness to the daily grind of harassment and hatred.

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