This Book Will Change Your Life - Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Spencer Dew.

Travel. Read. Repeat. Endlessly. And we have been travel and we have read and today we are Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Spencer Dew and we should say right upfront that Spencer Dew is not only a long-time TBWCLY, Inc. favorite, This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee, but he is also one of our favorite Chicago writers and live readers, regardless of where he may be living these days, and a big part of that is his voice, both the literary and literal, the twang and precision, the paranoia and anxiety, the sex and interaction, the focus on relationships, and the endless precision of it all. And its all present in Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres in some form or another, but there is something else as well, the presence of death, or more accurately dieing, and more specifically the dieing of a parent, and what that looks like at the end as it moves along incrementally and painfully, slowly and sadly, and yes, this book is beautifully designed, and big props to Another New Calligraphy for that, and yes, there are the connections to Henry Adams and gothic architecture, and this all good, but ultimately what makes us happiest, is that this feels like the work of someone stretching their voice in new directions and grappling with new themes and this is to be applauded, especially when they write like Spencer Dew and especially when there will be more to come.