May 1, 2026 | Rome, Italy
Jim Crace, death, mortality, beach

Being Dead

Ever wondered about corpses from the insect perspective? Crace reverses field to recreate the lost life of the dead.

Marilynne Robinson, Iowa, 1956, dying

Gilead

It's Gilead as in Gilead, Iowa in Marilynne Robinson's saga of the 1950s and family torment.

Amélie Nothomb, Peking, adolescence, Dacca

The Life of Hunger

Amélie-centric Nothomb gets no favors from a clunky translation in this fictional remembrance of days in then-Peking and Dacca.

Rome, Megan K. Williams, Canadian in Rome, Italy, Alice Munro

Saving Rome

Megan K. Williams strikes all the right chords in her adroit collection of stories about life in Rome.

Julie Hecht, 9/11, kinky

The Unprofessionals

Hecht is deadpan funny in this story about about electrolysis, household appliances, and the malfunctioning American suburbs.