“I often felt better off gone”
In addition to addressing themes related to living a creative life, the poems also delve into personal losses, struggles with addiction, and examinations of the circuitous paths we end up taking. Divided into three sections – “Folly Beach,” “The Venus Looking Glass,” and “Ancient Eye” – the collection offers up a vibrant cast of characters who influenced the speaker and ultimately helped him figure out who he wants to be. The poems in Magic Show are largely first-person, and Smith’s voice is accessible and inviting.
“O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side!”
Measure for Measure is counted as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” in part due to its sometimes uneasy veering between comedy and tragedy…. Despite some flaws in Shakespeare’s plot, the cast and crew of Measure for Measure present a dazzling and highly entertaining evening of theater.
A moving testament to a parent’s love and the invaluable support of community
Grief is one of the great universal subjects of poetry, indeed, of all arts. The loss of a child is obviously one of the most tragic triggers of grief; if one is a parent, it’s almost unimaginable. and then is Bradley’s sequel to her collection a gift, which first related the story of her son Baeley’s death in 2024.
When music speaks truth to power
When Europe’s greatest composer meets Europe’s most powerful ruler, one expects sparks to fly. And so they do, in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s powerful production of The Score by Oliver Cotton. But also wit, large doses of humor, and profound meditations on art, power, and spirituality.
It’s the blues. It’s not supposed to be uplifting.
Despite reasonably vigorous efforts to keep up, I had never before experienced the work of towering American playwright August Wilson (two Pulitzers, National Humanities Medal, a Tony Award, among many other recognitions). A vivid production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, by Round House Theatre in collaboration with Olney Theatre Center, provided a powerful initiation.
A very Washington comedy of manners, which delights with wacky hijinks and surprising earnestness
Set in the same fictional independent D.C. bookstore as Coll’s Bookish People, Word Salad is a completely standalone novel with mostly new characters, including the events manager and protagonist, Matilda. A mix of competence, social awkwardness, and intense curiosity, Matilda seems older than her 29 years.
Poems are like herons
Roderick Deacey’s debut book is aptly titled. As the poet says in an introductory note, “Birds flew into these poems, sometimes merely as a mention, sometimes just a feather or two, sometimes swirling and tumbling across the sky for the pure joy of it.” Deacey beautifully communicates this joy to readers in these poems.
Learning Where We Tread
Rather than prescribing a single path forward, Tread Upon demonstrates that attention itself can be transformative. Once knowledge changes how we perceive the world, it changes how we move through it. Kondrich reminds readers that every step leaves an impression and that learning where we tread may be the beginning of learning how to care for what surrounds us.
A deep exploration of the ordinary
Three Days in June (Knopf, 2025) is a love letter to introverts, and to anyone who’s ever felt out of place at a party, a business meeting, or the hairdresser. In her twenty-fifth novel, Anne Tyler returns to familiar territory and the themes she’s been wrestling with in fiction for over fifty years. Complicated, thorny family relationships. The push, pull, and dance of mother-daughter bonds. Awkward social conventions that seem illogical but also necessary …
Even broken angels heal
In this collection, Gary uses formal poetry and vivid artistic imagery to transform fragmented memory into a coherent story of survival and healing. These forms provide a structure to memories that often come in waves, presenting fragments of sorrow and happiness. Gary’s poetry sings on every page.
For every flare that faded out, another one lit up
The Sky will Hold is a book of survival, of second chances, of recovery and new beginnings. In this, her third full-length collection, Elizabeth Hazen explores loss and renewal, addiction and sobriety, the joys and difficulties of marriage and mothering. Many of these poems embody the mixed—even contradictory—emotions inevitably experienced in growing through life and navigating its changes.
Rescuing the Bard
In the Folger Theatre’s world premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life, prolific stage and television actor Jacob-Ming-Trent not only delivers a powerful performance, but carries out a critically valuable service: His one-man show is another important manifestation of the ongoing project of rescuing Shakespeare from the canon of Dead White Males and demonstrates the Bard’s continuing relevance to the contemporary world. It continues a tradition that includes productions in Native American languages, for example, in settings reflecting their cultures or stagings that reflect African or other former colonial cultures. The play is also a welcome addition to the practice of setting Shalespeare’s plays in varying historical eras including our own time, as presented by Hollywood or, closer to home, D.C.’s own Shakespeare Theatre Company and the Folger itself, as in its presentation last year of Julius X.
Our 2026 Pride Booklist
Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ+ readers and allies! Once again, Washington Unbound is very happy to present our Pride booklist. This year’s compilation includes works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and biography, demonstrating the range of themes, interests, and styles of queer writers. We are sure that readers of any and all genders, preferences, and tastes will find their next great read(s) here.
Looking back, and looking around now
As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence nears, what better time for an exploration of its principal author’s moral core, as disclosed by his private life? Sally & Tom shines the spotlight most intensively on the heart and soul of Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who was 14 at the start of her sexual relationship with Thomas Jefferson. By also weaving in a compelling depiction of Jefferson’s choices reverberating into the modern day, this is a play perfectly suited for the present moment.
“O beware my lord of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster”
The Shakespeare Theatre’s current production presents us with a very different Othello than we might expect. The set is simple—no ducal palace or vast battlefield—and intimate, all the better to allow the audience to follow Iago’s intricate schemes …
Calling all classic film lovers
Caroline Bock’s first novel for adults, The Other Beautiful People (Regal House 2026), is rich, layered, intellectually complex, and, yes, beautiful. Equal parts domestic fiction and workplace drama, the novel centers on Amy Greene, a television executive, wife, mother, and film aficionado whose life is combusting.
Poems on family, deep friendship, and . . . Italy
The language in this fine collection is mostly straightforward, “daily” language, skillfully woven to have the rhythm, subtlety, and imagery of poetry. Many of the poems themselves reflect dailiness—finding acorns in her son’s pocket after school, conjuring up delights with a seven-year-old during lockdown. Yet descriptions of daily moments widen into deeper explorations.
“You forget I can regrow my fangs, charmer”
The vagaries of love—romantic, sexual, or platonic—are an eternal theme for poetry, but Katherine Gekker manages to bring fresh observations to the subject in her second collection, O My Charmer. By turns witty and angry, contented and fearful, the poems in this book are compelling as they chart various phases of a sometimes turbulent relationship. It’s good to have new work from this fine poet.
When Respecting Your Elders Isn’t Quite Right
Chitra, of the eponymous Chitra Demands to Go Home is neither soft, wise, nor charmingly grumpy. I can’t say I love her for it—her personality is prickly without much to balance it out—but in this debut novel from Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, I found myself loving the story precisely because Chitra is a character to chafe against.
America is a mother
Multiple traditions, immigrant roots, the hard labor of making a life in the United States, the joys and sorrows of family life: Agusto-Cox treats all of these and more in this remarkable book. For anyone who has followed Serena’s career, it is extremely gratifying to see her work come to fruition in this excellent collection.