Leigh Haber

1 week ago | the.ink | Anand Giridharadas |Omar El Akkad |Leigh Haber

Today we were joined by the journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad, the author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, which we’ve been reading this month with The Ink Book Club. The book is a reflection on the devastation of Gaza, a memoir of the immigrant experience in North America, and a kind of breakup letter to the West from someone disillusioned not just with its worst hypocrisies and blind spots, but also with his own sense of complicity in an illusion.

2 weeks ago | the.ink | Leigh Haber

Welcome back to The Ink Book Club. We’ll meet next on Wednesday, June 11, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern for a second week of discussion of Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and then on Wednesday, June 18, we’ll gather live with the author. The Book Club is open to all supporting subscribers of The Ink, so join us now to take part!When a writer makes you feel guilt and shame for not seeing beyond the “relentless parachuting of virtue,” is that a good thing?

3 weeks ago | latimes.com | Leigh Haber

Book Review So Far Gone By Jess WalterHarper: 272 pages, $30If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Jess Walter’s searing and sublime eighth novel, “So Far Gone,” is a wistful elegy — some might say a eulogy — to a kinder, gentler time. Its compelling antihero, sixty-something Rhys Kinnick, has spent seven years in self-imposed exile, occupying a cinder block cabin in a remote region of Washington state.

3 weeks ago | the.ink | Leigh Haber

We just wrapped up our first Live discussion with the Book Club of Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and we dug into how the author’s searing, poetic language puts the big, abstract political concepts the book wrestles with into a very human, deeply personal frame. During the chat, we explored the difficulty of grappling with multiple moral truths, what liberalism means in theory and in practice, who belongs in a democracy and who doesn’t, and much more.

3 weeks ago | the.ink | Leigh Haber

Welcome back to The Ink Book Club, as we begin our discussion of Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. This searing nonfiction debut by the author of American War has rightfully been compared to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. We’ll meet on Substack Live this Wednesday, May 7, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern to talk about the book, and on Wednesday, June 18, we’ll gather live with Omar El Akkad, so make sure to add the date to your calendar.