The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Books  |  Dance  |  Museum And Gallery  |  Theater
unsexy2011_1000x50b

Picking the season’s best books — for everyone from plutocrats to paupers

Reading class
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON  |  December 6, 2011

BOOKS_AfterTheApocolypse3D.jpg 

BOOKS FOR THE 99%: STORIES

AFTER THE APOCALYPSE | MAUREEN MCHUGH | SMALL BEER | $15 | The nine stories in Maureen McHugh's latest collection seem uniquely suited to these distressing times. They cover issues ranging from chicken-nugget-borne illness, to China's growing economy, to a sculptor, crushed by the iron boot of the recession, who makes sex toys in order to avoid foreclosure. The cumulative effect is both harrowing and strangely palliative - thoughts of the apocalypse can be a balm for confusion, since things, it seems, can always be worse.


 

 

 

< prev  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |   next >
Related:
  • Gifts for the 1%
    They say the best things in life are free. But you know what makes those things even better ? Swag!
  • Gifts for the 99%
    Plaid Friday has come and gone, but no time like the present to stick it to capitalism this holiday season.
  • Holiday treasure hunt
    Is it trash or treasure? The editorial team here at the Portland Phoenix compiled this year's incarnation of our annual local gift guide by searching for diamonds in the rough.
  • More more >
  Topics: Books , Books , Design , Shopping ,  More more >
| More
Featured Articles in Books:
ARTICLES BY EUGENIA WILLIAMSON
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   IN A QUEST TO QUIT SMOKING, OUR REPORTER DELVES INTO THE STRANGE WORLD OF MODERN HYPNOSIS  |  January 05, 2012
    I sit with a group of 19 others in a semicircle in what looks like a living room in a brick Brookline walk-up. The smell of old cigarettes lingers on our clothes.
  •   TOP 20 MEMES OF 2011  |  December 28, 2011
    An alphabetical, scientifically accurate list of the year's most pervasive memes.
  •   AUTHORS TOTE THEIR WARES TO AREA BOOKSTORES  |  December 30, 2011
    A new story collection from Dan Chaon and new novels from Heidi Julavits and Adam Johnson are just some of the delights in store for Boston lit nerds.
  •   MEME FORECAST FOR 2012  |  December 30, 2011
    When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" in 1976 — meaning "a piece of thought copied from person to person" — he probably didn't realize that, in time, the word would come to be synonymous with cat macros, various advice animals, and Rebecca Black.
  •   INK FOR EGGHEADS  |  December 15, 2011
    Over the last four years, Zimmer has become the nation's foremost chronicler of scientific skin art.

 See all articles by: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON