Somewhere in Della's consumptive, industrial wasteland of a city, a bomb goes off. It is not the first, and will not be the last.
Reactions to the attacks are polarized. Police activity intensifies. Della's revolutionary parents welcome the upheaval but are trapped within their own insular beliefs. Her activist restaurant co-workers, who would rather change their identities than the world around them, resume a shallow rebellion of hair-dye, sex parties, and self-absorption. As those bombs keep inching closer, thudding deep and real between the sounds of katydids fluttering in the still of the city night, and the destruction begins to excite her. What begins as terror threats called in to greasy bro-bars across the block boils over into a desperate plot, intoxicating and captivating Della and leaving her little chance for escape.
Zazen unfolds as a search for clarity soured by irresolution and catastrophe, yet made vital by the thin, wild veins of imagination run through each escalating moment, tensing and relaxing, unfurling and ensnaring. Vanessa Veselka renders Della and her world with beautiful, freighting, and phantasmagorically intelligent accuracy, crafting from their shattered constitutions a perversely perfect mirror for our own selves and state.
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Enjoyed this year's Long Island Reads selection? Check out these titles too!
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- Birds of a Feather
- National Autism Awareness Month
- National Poetry Month
- Passover
- Earth Day
- Blake Crouch: Dark Matter and More
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- See all
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Enjoyed this year's Long Island Reads selection? Check out these titles too!
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- National Autism Awareness Month
- Earth Day
- Poetry Is Meant To Be Spoken
- National Poetry Month
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Page to Screen
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- New audiobook additions
- See all
- #ownvoices / Diverse Books
- Antiracism Resources
- Sheet Music & Song Books
- Bücher auf Deutsch / Books in German
- Civil Service Test Prep
- The Great Courses
- QuickReads Collection
- See all