Mehrul Bari

Nadeem Zaman’s The Inheritors retells and recontextualizes one of the most famous stories there ever was—F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

Luna strode then to the river’s bank, her loose-fitting blouse and petticoat flapping in the breeze that had speedily arrived. Her nupur, fashioned from mollusk shells, sounded in the wind like wind chimes, and more so when she moved.

And in the streets of Shonarga, Luna went about on foot, her nupur clinking against her ankles, notifying all passers-by of the good queen’s proximity.

The workshops were the sessions I’d look forward to. Someone actually reading your work, studying it, telling you what you do well, telling you what you can improve on, all phrased constructively (“I like this!” was a banned phrase). If you’re pursuing writing, workshopping—on some level or another—is what you’ll need.

What point is Lord of the Rings making in 2022? That people are racist and wage wars? The original trilogy, from two decades ago, was making that same point.

If you didn’t read The Sandman, watch The Sandman. If you read The Sandman, don’t expect the same magic as in the pages.

“Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart”, reads the stark opening line in Michelle Zauner’s 2021 memoir, Crying in H Mart (Knopf), starting the

A book’s epigraph usually either leaves you droplets of hints of what’s to come or purposefully perplexes, with abstract quotes that leave you feeling rather than knowing.