RaveEsquire\"In this poignant memoir, a former Esquire editor-in-chief memorializes his mother, the inimitable woman who taught him how to be a man. After the death of McDonell’s father, a WWII fighter pilot, 25-year-old schoolteacher Irma was left to raise her young son alone. She made a new life for them in California, where she raised her son to read widely, love nature, and cultivate independence. This accounts for just Part One of McDonell’s memoir; in Part Two, he makes a bold narrative leap, transitioning to the third-person perspective as he recounts his adult struggles and successes, as well as the challenge of cultivating his own \'philosophy of fatherhood\' without a role model. Lyrical and lucid, Irma tells a stirring tale of how our parents shape us—the ones who aren’t there, and the ones who are.\
Sally Rooney
RaveEsquireIn Beautiful World, a soaring new outing from a global phenom, Rooney hammers out the problems and promises of contemporary novels and contemporary life—all while reminding us of her distinctive style’s disarming intimacies ... don\'t mistake Beautiful World for a defensive crouch; this is Rooney stepping into herself as a fully-formed artist, ready to defend the validity and originality of her methods ... Beautiful World entertains the questions of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment that torment us in our late twenties, all of it tempered by the political and environmental collapse this generation stands to inherit ... Beautiful World combines the intricacies of Rooney’s lightning-rod style, like her deep well of sympathy for her characters and her precise economy of language, with a growing maturity. This is a more spiritual book than her previous novels—one that holds more wisdom, digs deeper into self-reflection, and lives more fully in its questions
Joanne McNeil
RaveEsquireLurking is far-reaching and ferociously smart, told from the hearts and minds of users rather than the profit and loss statements of tech conglomerates. In centering her research on the user experience of an ever-changing internet rather than the theatrics and myth-making of Big Tech, McNeil weaves a people’s history of the internet, making for a humane, big-hearted narrative of how the internet has changed—and how it changed us ... As the internet evolved, so too did the ways in which it organizes our lives, our time, and our senses of self. McNeil excels at drawing these nebulous concepts into sharp relief ... The success of Lurking isn’t just in its sharp insight into how the internet has changed us—it’s in McNeil’s evocative prose ... McNeil’s vision inspires hope that it can become a place where the term \'user-friendly\' isn’t just a platitude—it’s a reality.
