Novels by Min Jin Lee and Elisa Shua Dusapin, graphic memoirs by David Small and Liana Finck, and poetry by Andrea Cohen

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In 1910, when Hoonie was twenty-seven years old, Japan annexed Korea. The fisherman and his wife [were] thrifty and hardy peasants . . . When the rent for their house was raised again, the couple moved out of their bedroom and slept in the anteroom near the kitchen to increase the number of lodgers.
—From Pachinko, a novel by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central Publishing, 2017). This is from page 3 of the trade paperback. I also listened to the audiobook, narrated by Allison Hiroto, which was excellent. 

The mere moving of her fork a half-inch to the right spelled dread at the dinner table. . . . Because she never spoke her mind, we never knew what this was all about. We two boys didn't, at any rate.  
—From Stitches, a graphic memoir by David Small (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009). These lines are from page 16 of the hardcover. 

It's a long book, more than 300 pages, and the artwork is a real standout. The illustrations are detailed and evocative. 

Also, you are hungry. You are so, so hungry. (And thirsty.) 
—From How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, a graphic memoir by Liana Finck (The Dial Press, 2024). 

Though these are both graphic memoirs, and they're both books that focus on parents and parenting, they're very different in both tone and content. Stitches is much darker and more serious. How to Baby is lighter and more humorous. 

Something went wrong.
That's what the machine
says when I call to say
my paper didn't arrive.  
—From The Sorrow Apartments, a collection of poetry by Andrea Cohen (Four Way Books, 2024). This is from "Something," pp. 28-30 in the paperback (first published, with an audio recording, in The Adroit Journal, Issue 39). My other favorites were "Adjacent," page 9 (Jewish Currents); "The Sorrow Apartments," 41-44 (The Arkansas International); and "Historical Register," p. 78. 

The rain was coming down so hard I missed the sign for the village. It had smudged the tire tracks, flattened out the ruts. In the end I couldn't see where I was going and had to pull over to the side of the road. All that water hammering down on the hood. 
—From The Old Fire, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Summit Books, 2026). Originally published in France as Le vieil incendie (Éditions Zoé, 2023). 

Short stories by Joy Williams, micro-memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly, and novels by Vivek Shanbhag, Michael Cunningham, and Ben Lerner

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The driver and I got a late start. I usually decide on these excursions the night before, but it was late in the morning when I informed the friend who was coming to visit me for the weekend that I had to cancel . . . 
—From The Pelican Child, a collection of stories by Joy Williams (Knopf, 2025). This is the beginning of the first story, "Flour." 

Ideas like independent thinking and liberal values are all fine in the abstract, but when your child begins to rebel at home, they turn into hot ghee in the mouth—too good to spit out, too painful to swallow.
—From Sakina's Kiss, a novel by Vivek Shanbhag, translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur (McNally Editions, 2025). Originally published in the Kannada language as Sakinala Muttu in Heggodu, India (Akshara Prakashana, 2021). First published in English in Gurgaon, India (Penguin Random House India, 2023). The line above is from page 57 of the McNally paperback.

When Robbie starts downstairs, from his place to Isabel and Dan's, he finds Isabel on the stairs, sitting with her knees pressed together and her arms wrapped around her knees, as if to make the smallest possible package of herself.
—From Day, a novel by Michael Cunningham (Random House, 2023). This sentence is from page 13 of the hardcover.

I was falling asleep on the train. I was going to interview Thomas, who had just turned ninety. My seat was facing opposite the direction of travel, making it difficult to read his latest book, which I was holding in my hand. It upsets my stomach if I try to read while I'm looking the wrong way—or, as my ten-year-old, Eva, put it on a train to Lublin last summer, if I am "facing the past."
—From Transcription, a novel by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026). I liked the audiobook, too, which was narrated by Seth Numrich.

There wasn't much to do after we'd strolled the porch and ridden a carriage, hence you begged Dad for money so we could hit the tourist drag, but even you didn't think he'd hand over—alongside the usual admonition to look after your little sister—a twenty.
—From The Irish Goodbye, micro-memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026). This line is from "Dad Gave Us Twenty Dollars, Which Was a Lot in 1979." It was originally published in Notre Dame Review, and it appears in The Irish Goodbye on pages 28 and 29 in the hardcover. 

The Spring 2026 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2026 issue of the Apple Valley Review features a short story by Mary Luna; flash fiction by Lisa Beech Hartz, Wendy Elizabeth Wallace, Jon Acheson, and Kimmy Chang; a memoir by John Picard; and poetry by Julia Lisella, Jackson Burgess, Joshua Tilton, John Minczeski, Sambhunath Chattopadhyay (translated from the Bengali by Kingshuk Sarkar), Renee Emerson, and Igor Monsellato. The cover photograph is by Tim Mossholder.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.org. 

Poetry by Bri Gearhart Staton and Andrea Cohen, flash fiction by Gary Fincke, and graphic novels by Emma Hunsinger and Edgar Camacho

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Some Saturdays, I'd wake up smokey
and alone
with my coat and my shoes
still on.
—From "Portrait of a Hungover Woman Eating a Tomato Sandwich," a poem by Bri Gearhart Staton, the first-place winner of the Ps & Qs Audio Poem Contest. I was really impressed with the quality of these submissions. Text and audio versions of this and other winning poems are available on the website for Quibble Lit.

What was the name of that bar was it really the Sugar Club is it still here who were we running in from the cold —From "Sugar," a poem by Andrea Cohen, The New Yorker (September 2, 2024), pp. 28-29. 

Jason's mother opens the door to his room to tell him she has a new boyfriend. He is staying overnight now and Jason should know. "Roy doesn't want to scare you or anything if you run into each other in the morning."
—From "Messes," one of two pieces of flash fiction by Gary Fincke, New World Writing Quarterly (January 12, 2026). The second story is "Places." 

You two excited for school to start?
Oh yeah, I really missed saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
—From How It All Ends, a graphic novel by Emma Hunsinger (Greenwillow Books, 2024). Emma Hunsinger wrote and illustrated "How to Draw a Horse," a graphic story that appeared in The New Yorker in 2019. I really liked it and have recommended it to numerous people. This graphic novel, How It All Ends, is in a similar vein. It's actually juvenile fiction, which I didn't realize until I was partway through it, but that's just FYI. It is a story about getting older and is appropriate for any age from middle school on. 

These chilaquiles are really good. Are you sure you don't want some?
—From Onion Skin, a graphic novel by Edgar Camacho (Top Shelf Productions, 2021). Originally published in Mexico as Piel de cebolla by Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro and Instituto Queretano de la Cultura y Artes. The art is the best part of this one. 

A poem by Anthony Walton, and discussions of complicated family dynamics in a novella by Ágota Kristóf, a novel by Anne Tyler, and a short story by Ayşegül Savaş

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Line was waiting for me at the factory entrance, leaning against the wall. She looked so pale and sad that I decided to stop and talk to her.
—From Yesterday, a novella by Ágota Kristóf, translated from the French by David Watson (Dover Publications, Inc., 2019). The book was originally published in Paris, France, as Hier (Éditions du Seuil, 1996). The English-language translation was originally published in London, England (Secker & Warburg, 1997). 

Please note: although it's not as graphic as The Notebook Trilogy, this book does contain some subject matter that may not be suitable for everyone.     

I was in Istanbul for a few days and on my way to visit my grandfather. He'd moved in with my father at the beginning of the pandemic because we had been worried about him living alone, in the town by the Black Sea where he'd retired.
—From "Freedom to Move," a short story by Ayşegül Savaş, The New Yorker (July 22, 2024), pp. 50-54.

We are driving the Middle West, lost
as Oklahoma or Kansas slowly spins 
—From "Dead Reckoning," a poem by Anthony Walton, The New Yorker (July 22, 2024), pp. 52-53. 

Bonus book to read again: 

While Cody's father nailed the target to the tree trunk, Cody tested the bow. He drew the string back, laid his cheek against it, and narrowed his eyes at the target. His father was pounding in tacks with his shoe; he hadn't thought to bring a hammer. He looked like a fool, Cody thought. He owned no weekend clothes, as other fathers did, but had driven to this field in his strained-looking brown striped salesman suit, white starched shirt, and navy tie with multicolored square and circles scattered randomly across it. 
—From Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). 

A poem by ethan s. evans, stories by Kelly Link, novels by Solvej Balle and Lily King, and books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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when they started to build a data center on the infill lot at the end of our road . . . 
—From "you told me you wanted a baby," a prose poem by ethan s. evans, Sixth Finch (Winter 2026). 

At a table nearby three women were talking about a new pocket universe. A new diet. A coworker's new baby; a girl born with no shadow. . . . A long, lubricated conversation followed about over-the-counter shadows—prosthetics, available in most drugstores, not expensive and reasonably durable. 
—From Get in Trouble, a collection of nine stories by Kelly Link (Random House, 2015). This segment is from my favorite story, "Light," which closed the collection (pp. 287-333 in the hardcover). "Light" originally appeared in Tin House (Fall 2007).  

Nothing has changed and there is nothing I have to do. There are no books to be bought, no auctions to attend, no friends to visit. I have no pattern of sounds and silence around which to organize my day, I have no plans, I have no calendar. Time passes, but all it does is pour day after day into my world, it goes nowhere, it has no stops or stations, only this endless chain of days. 
—From On the Calculation of Volume II, a novel by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions, 2024). This is the second book in a series of seven and has been published by arrangement with Copenhagen Literary Agency. Originally published as Om udregning af rumfang II (Pelagraf, 2020). The excerpt above is from page 7 of the English-language paperback. 

Plaire is not a wealthy town. It is not one of those immaculate, romantic villages described in books about the south of France. 
—From The Pleasing Hour, a novel by Lily King (Grove Press, 1999). 

Bonus books to read again: 

All winter long, they had been crowded in the little kitchen, cold and hungry and working hard in the dark and the cold to twist enough hay to keep the fire going and to grind wheat in the coffee mill for the day's bread. 
—From Little Town on the Prairie, from the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1941). My copy is from Harper Trophy (first printing, 1971) with illustrations by Garth Williams. I've also recently reread Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, and The Long Winter (referenced above, in this excerpt which appears toward the beginning of Little Town on the Prairie, on page 3). 

I've read some things about the controversies surrounding these books. I agree that the stories include some shockingly racist language and thoughts (not from Laura herself but from others around her). Even within the books, though, there are multiple disagreements on this topic. In several scenes, Ma, who is a young woman often left alone in the middle of nowhere with tiny children, is clearly terrified of the Native Americans because of stories she's heard, not because of her own real-life interactions, which are largely benign. Pa, on the other hand, seems to have a positive and cordial relationship with the local Native Americans, and he reiterates this multiple times to Ma. 

It doesn't make sense to me to ban or remove or vilify these books or their author, who was of course in every way a product of her time. The stories provide a valuable opportunity to discuss historical differences of all kinds. For example, can we compare women and children's roles in society and in the home between then and now? Thoughts about many things have changed enormously since then. Talking about these differences seems better than pretending that they never existed.

One of the through lines is the significance of a loving family and supportive community. There are many times in these stories when having the help of friends and neighbors means the difference between life and death. The books also emphasize the importance of education and hard work. These values feel as important as ever. 

A set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a collection of reinvented fairy tales by Kelly Link, a short story by Devon Halliday, and memoirs by Emilia McKenzie and Mark Vonnegut

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We arrive from the Big Town. We've been traveling all night. Mother's eyes are red. She's carrying a big cardboard box, and the two of us are each carrying a small suitcase containing our clothes, plus Father's big dictionary, which we pass back and forth when our arms get tired. 
—From The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie, a set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a Hungarian writer who moved to Switzerland when she was twenty-one. The novels are sometimes referred to collectively as The Notebook Trilogy (Grove Press, 1997). They were translated from the French by, respectively, Alan Sheridan, David Watson, and Marc Romano, and are collected here in one long volume. The books were originally published individually in French as Le grand cahier, La preuve, and Le troisième mensonge (Éditions du Seuil, 1986, 1988, 1991).

Please note: this set of three novels contains a fair amount of violence and themes that may not be for everyone.

The white cat said that she could not possibly consider allowing him to leave for at least another day. And so he spent the evening in the company of cats, playing board games and drinking games, while his dogs lay panting and happy on the flagstones beside the hearth. 
—From White Cat, Black Dog, a collection of seven stories by Kelly Link (Random House, 2023). Each story is preceded by a black and white illustration by Shaun Tan. My favorite stories were the bookends of the collection, "The White Cat's Divorce" and "Skinder's Veil." This excerpt, from "The White Cat's Divorce," appears on page 15 of the paperback. I recommend this book in print and as an audiobook; both versions were excellent. The stories were narrated by, in order, Rebecca Lowman, Dan Stevens, Dominic Hoffman, Kristen Sieh, Ish Klein, Tanya Cubric, and Patton Oswalt (Books on Tape, 2023). 

Frank keeps his eyes moving in their steady rotation, fixing his face in an empty and unsuggestive smile. Whenever he sees the student now he feels a kind of mental tilt, a shiver of precarity, and he has to shake it off like a dream.
—From "Nothing That Counts," a short story by Devon Halliday, One Story, Issue 317 (September 19, 2024)

My dear friend Charlotte died one Wednesday in May 2018. She was 34 years old. . . . A humble comic could never do justice to who she was. It's not really about suicide or mental health, either. 
—From But You Have Friends, a graphic memoir by Emilia McKenzie (Top Shelf Productions, 2023).

June 1969: Swarthmore Graduation. The night before, someone had taken white paint and painted "Commence What?" on the front of the stage. The maintenance crew had dutifully covered it over with red, white, and blue bunting, but we all knew it was there. 
—From The Eden Express, a memoir by Mark Vonnegut (Praeger Publishing, 1975). This book has been reissued in print at least once or twice since then, but I was listening to the audiobook, which was narrated by Pete Cross (Dreamscape Media, 2017).