Sara Ryan

Methland: the death and life of an American small town, by Nick Reding. The stories of several residents of Oelwein, Iowa affected by the meth epidemic in various ways ground a larger economic and sociological narrative that connects the rise of methamphetamines with agricultural and pharmaceutical industry consolidation and patterns of migration. Because I’m always [...]

I’ve been wanting to write about Cheesemonger by Gordon Edgar since I finished reading it, shortly after Gordon’s event at the ever-awesome Reading Frenzy. First off, read Cheesemonger if you like: Punk. Worker-owned cooperatives. Cheese. (Duh.) I am a fan of all three, and also of Gordon, so I was expecting to really enjoy this [...]

Head on over to Chasing Ray for the latest What A Girl Wants post, “On the eternally infamous bad girl.” And as usual, I’m pairing a link to the latest post with a repost of one of my responses to an earlier post in the series. This one was my answer to Colleen’s question about [...]

[A character is in the midst of attempting to describe a church spire that he sees outside his window every day.] Terms swarm up to tempt me in the course of this description: Greek Orthodox, Romanesque, flying buttress, etc. These guessing words I find junked into my brain in deranged juxtaposition, like files randomly stuffed [...]

Still catching up from Boston, black nail polish now very chipped. Have been brooding about tragedies of various scales, also tempests and their associated teapots. Feeling more inclined to shut up than put up, this fragmentary post notwithstanding. But here are three good things, as a counterweight: Tales of the Madman Underground, which I read [...]

My mom likes to tell the story of when she and Dad decided it was time to jettison the couch we’d had my entire life — which was, then, a whole six years, I think. Struck by the beloved object’s approaching tragic fate, I proclaimed: “That orange couch never hurt anybody in its life!” I [...]

I have recently purchased at my local independent book and comic shops: Likewise by Ariel Schrag. I don’t know how I missed that this came out earlier this year. I’ve been following Ariel’s comics since the single-issue days of Definition. Obsessive! Funny! Brutal! When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Delighted to jump onto this [...]

Another repost of my answer to one of Colleen Mondor’s excellent What A Girl Wants questions. Here’s Colleen’s question: Do you think historic MG & YA fiction addresses socioeconomic status more effectively than contemporary titles? Why or why not? Is it just easier for us to think of the Marches in Little Women struggling in [...]

Listening: Cadillac Orpheus, by Solon Timothy Woodward. It’s Woodward’s first novel, set in small-town Florida, a brilliant combination of over-the-top events and characters and cool, precisely descriptive prose. Read by the equally amazing Dion Graham. Upstate, by Kalisha Buckhanon. An epistolary novel. The letters are between Natasha and Antonio, young lovers from Harlem separated when [...]

For various reasons, I couldn’t wait for the U.S. edition of A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book, so I bought the British edition, with this gorgeous cover. I have just started to read it. You can listen to an audio interview with Byatt about The Children’s Book on Australia’s The Book Show, a new favorite source [...]