Books I Read August 2nd, 2026

Fire fire everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

The Fisherman's Invocation by Gabriel Okara – Post-Colonial Nigerian poetry. I read poetry so infrequently that I can't really see a reason to offer my opinion on this bit which, I admit, I thought was a novel when I ordered it from the library. But I enjoyed the eponymous, which was yea-inducing.

On Earth as it is Beneath by Ana Paula Mia – Another of the author's short, sharp, mean, hyper-masculine novelettes, gently straddling the literary/genre divide. As a rule I tend to find self-consciously brutal books to be kind of tedious (this is why I don't like Cormac McCarthy) but Mia slides past for me. It might be because it's short. It might be because one sort of feels that as a woman Mia can't be taking her laconic, honor-bound supermen altogether seriously. Anyway, I enjoyed this.

The Morning Star by Andre Schwartz-Bart – Shoa magical realism by a survivor of the same.

The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis – Y/A mice are plagued by a mischief of rats in thrall to a dark god. I've been thinking lately that the melding of Y/A and Fantasy has been a really bad thing for both genres. At some point, every Y/A book adopted the naked power fantasies reminiscent of the worst of the genre, in which a very special person grows in their specialness over the course of many special adventures at Paladin school or whatever. One can't help but feel that teaching adolescents that they really are the center of the universe is maybe not constructive. Anyway, this is a nice example of a time before that happened, innocent in its motivations and languages although admirably dark in its execution. .

The New Adventures of Helen: Magical Tails by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya – Impossible fantasies evoking extremely human concerns. These are lighter than the Petrushevskaya's I've read, with less of the Gothic flourishes which characterize those works. Which, honestly, I kind of missed, but once I got over that I started to enjoy myself. These are notably weird and strangely kind.

Contempt by Alberto Moravia – A callow writer loses his wife's love, tries to determine which of his failings led to that end. This is the kind of book in which the vast majority of the text consists of the protagonist's dissections of his own feelings and thoughts, and a line of dialogue can be followed by three paragraphs of explication. I don't really like those kinds of books, and the themes of masculine anxiety didn't really resonate with me. But that's largely personal and I could see another reader feeling very different.

The Black Bands of Giovanni by Maurizio Arfaioli – Yeah, what can I say, sometimes I just feel the urge to read a really in-depth history of an arquebus regiment in the Italian Wars. And this was that.

Books I Read July 26th, 2026

In truth, we spend a tiny fraction of time in shared reality—one's inner landscape is vaster and more compelling. In these alien realms our shadows live as great heroes and worse villains, even as we, their ignorant originators, putter about the grotty earth, faithless and uncertain.

The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling – Against the unconsidered imperialism which mars everything he writes, one must set the sheer love Kipling had for his adopted homeland—idiosyncratic and limited, certainly, but then all love is like that, given to an idea of a thing and not the thing itself—and so powerful that one can't help but be enchanted by his affection. Also, he struck upon the universal truth that we all wish we had been raised by wolves.

Brickmakers by Selva Almada – A multi-generational feud between two families of hyper-masculine if basically useless day laborers ends in violence. This reminded me a lot of Ana Paula Maia in its genre-ish exploration of machismo, which is to say it was taut and well-written and maybe a little bit performative.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins – Evolution is driven neither by species loyalty nor even individual creatures per se but by discrete codes of DNA which blindly form the architecture of biological existence. A fascinating and well-explored premise, though as this is the first book on evolutionary biology I've ever read I can't really comment on its validity. Still, excellent scientific writing, if marred occasionally by Dawkins' peculiar religious bug bears. I can understand how if you were like, raised in an evangelical cult and screamed at for masturbating you might find the rejection of religious thought appealing, but I confess it's a mystery to me how people of Dawkins ilk (i.e., educated westerners living in a post-Christian civilization) can hold it responsible for so much societal ill, and moreover can envision a form of triumphalist atheism. On balance—and I say this as a committed if sorrowful non-believer—wouldn't we all prefer to be governed by a kindly and all-powerful deity, or at least exist in a universe possessed of some guiding purpose or order? That this is so clearly not the case seems cause for lament rather than celebration.

The Dark by John McGahern – A precocious youth survives an adolescence in post-war rural Ireland, struggling with Onanistic proclivities, the Catholic Church, and his cruel, pitiful, complicated father. The writing is excellent, swift and soulful, and the characters sympathetic and well-drawn. I really liked it, I'm picking up another by him soon.

Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult by Bohumil Hrabel – Surrealistic depictions of life in the early Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, as the government sought to recreate society, forcing intellectuals to smelt ore and replacing centuries-old Bohemian heroes. Between this and last week's very good, very different novel about killing cats, I've come to really appreciate the range of Hrabel's work. A great talent capable of profound and idiosyncratic insight.

My Story by Kamala Das – The intimate autobiography of an atypical Indian.

Books I Read July 19th, 2026

Back on that reading train and we're steaming down the tracks. Before I write a negative review I go through this formula which looks basically like...

(How Much Do I Hate This Book – (How Likely is it the Author Will Ever See It + How Badly Would it Impact Their Day)) X How Much Energy Do I Really Want to Spend Writing Bad Things

And invariably that last factor is 0. I want to spend 0 amount of time writing bad things. Or thinking bad things for that matter.

Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste – A family tries to survive the collapse of the Ethiopian monarchy and the rise of the Derg regime.

Like a Hole in the Head by James Hadley Chase – A thriller.

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson – Science-fiction.

The Crock of Gold by James Stephens – A bizarre comic-philosophical novel from early 20th century Eire, surreal, fairy-based impossible happenings interspersed with lengthy semi-ironic dialogues about knowledge and instinct, men and woman, hate and love, so on and so forth. Truly weird, lots of fun.

Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller – The author's upbringing in a family of itinerant White Africans surviving the unfortunate Rhodesia Experiment and moving up and down Central East Africa according to the vagaries of war, weather, misfortune and mental illness. Extremely readable, Fuller's life story is fascinating and compelling if often tragic and kind of horrifying.

Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongala – A psychotic militiaman and a desperate young woman survive several days in the chaotic looting of an unnamed West African country in the midst of violent civil war. A little on the nose in parts but he has a keen grasp of the superficial brutality of violent and selfish men.

Books I Read July 12th, 2026

I work very hard to see the flowers.

Fools of Fortune by William Trevor – The devastating weight of history and violence on several generations of minor Anglo-Irish gentry. Trevor's language is subtle and complex, with great passion expressed via silence and omission. It's a style I find myself increasingly drawn to as I get older. William Trevor was a great talent.

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards – A crusty iconoclast journeys across Guernsey to find an heir to his minor fortune, reflects on the 20th century, friendship, love, the unknowable vagaries of fate. Charming, sweet, sad.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling – Even Edward Said could agree that Kipling wrote some gloriously engaging pulp. In a short handful of stories Kipling vividly limns the laws and culture of an imaginary world. And Ricki-Ticki-Tavvi is still a lot of fun.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling – Steampunk.

Woman of the Aeroplanes by Kojo Laing – Inexplicable surrealist post-Colonial African fiction. I will be honest and just say I could not make heads or tails of this one at all—and I'm pretty into inexplicable surrealist post-Colonial African fiction. I'd even go so far as to say I dig inexplicable surrealist post-Colonial African fiction, but this was just beyond me.

The Fifth Had of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe – Three short stories set on a pair of distant backwater planets consider which firmly establish Wolfe's place the canon. One of the great things about reading Gene Wolfe is that he's one of the very few—maybe the only?--writer where you can never be entirely sure if a mystery is intentionally unanswerable or if you just haven't figured it out. I'll just throw out one here if anyone has an answer: to judge by the first and third stories, the human colonists are only aware of one alien species which preceded their arrival, but the second story speaks clearly (or does it?) of two. In any event, its essential opaqueness allows for a variety of readings, bound together by Wolfe's compellingly bleak conclusions on the nature of identity, death and decay.

All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabel – All of the books I've read by Hrabel have been manic comedies stiffened with a shot of Soviet despair, so I was a little unprepared for this genuinely harrowing depiction of a manic breakdown brought about by the author's love for the stray felines whose ever-expanding clowder force him to engage in increasing acts of post-natal abortion. A sensitive if horrifying contemplation of the core of violence which is a through line of all organic life.

Books I Read June 22nd, 2026

Right. It hasn't been a great few months for reading, I'm sorry to say. I did, however, make soap yesterday. Soap! Out of olive oil and lye! I'm really pretty pleased with that. Oh, I also have a book coming out next week – The Soft Touch if you're interested.

Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban – A Huck Finn analog journeys through a apocalyptic England, telling his story in a miraculous future cant. Reading it a second time I was struck once more by the genuinely unique language in which it's written. There's really nothing like it in any literature that I've experienced, a bizarre mash up of opaque metaphor and enough phonetic literalness to make Webster blush. But I was also struck by how odd it is conceptually. Although it presents itself initially as being a more or less straight genre novel told in a bizarre prose, it pretty quickly veers into the realm of allegory, a darkly beautiful discussion of humanity's inevitable instincts towards self-destruction, one in some small way mitigated by our heroism and kindness.

Second Hand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich – Reading it again I was struck by the sad parallels between the moral collapse of Alexivich's post-Soviet interview subjects and America's present. Though we haven't yet hit the economic nosedive which is sure to befall us in the probably not too distant future, and we'll never be capable of Russia's particular genius for alcoholism and dramatic passion, the collapse of moral confidence which has taken place in the West post-Trump and the increasing feeling that our society is nothing but an elaborate Ponzi-scheme reflect the same sense of anomie revealed in these pages. Anyway, still great.

Warlock by Oakey Hall – A fascinating meta-commentary on the Western as a genre and what it reveals about the American mindset and the savage contradictions within them which end in inevitable tragedy. Hall assembles a cast of Western archetypes drawn from across history and literature, then pits them against one another in cruel and violent affray which allows for no innocents (though a few monsters). There's quite a lot of speechifying, I will say, but this is a book which exists just to the side of reality, and the dialogue is both clever and effective. Yeah, I mean, great. If Lonesome Dove wasn't already the best western of all time, Oakey Hall might have claim to the title.

Books I Read June 8th, 2026

Finally managed to get this done in sequential weeks, yay for me, yay for us.

PS. Every so often I like to sneak in here and say if you support Trump you’re a fuckwit and I hold you in abiding contempt.

Taiwan Travelogue – I read this book.

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood – A savagely funny, deeply sad, probably exaggerated exploration of the mental illnesses of her inconceivably wealthy, terribly broken family. Still excellent.

The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits – Facing an empty nest, a good natured, distant professor has a midlife crisis, goes on a cross-country trip, considers his flaws as a father, husband, man, etc. Funny, sweetly written, this is the kind of book I honestly don't tend to like (smart middle-aged man feels things, things a lot about himself) but I really enjoyed this. It reminded me a bit of Etgar Keret in its funny, conversational take on masculinity and manhood and family. Very readable.

The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye – In Laye's brilliant rejoinder to colonial literature, a morally bankrupt cracker finds in Africa a reflection of his own laziness, greed, lust and violence.Not so much a book about Africa but a book about how foreigners experience it, a surreal, Kafkaesque, utterly unique take on the shallow idiocy of racism. Still utterly original several generations on, I can't think of another work in the African canon which so effectively explores the experience of white/foreigners relationship with the continent. Weird, unique, excellent.

Books I Read June 1st, 2026

Been a while. May was a busy month, too busy to read much or even chronicle that modest catch. But a good one! Mine are healthy and well, at the moment, at least, and that's all there is.

Riders inn the Chariot by Patrick White – This was a big part of the reason I didn't read much in May. Most of the stuff I've been re-reading has been noir or short, punchy weird fiction, this was the first really significant thing I've worked through. And it was well worth the effort, a brilliantly written, surrealist fantasy of an almost-second-coming taking place in a suburb of Sydney. White's vision of God is so strange and potent, a searing vision of the impossible beauty and awfulness of existence, that I could only read it in bits. It sat on my night table a while kind of challenging me to get back to it. The language is incredibly good, almost every sentence feels fresh and strange and needs to be considered closely for meaning, but the work invariably pays off. A side plot depicting the pair of demonic crones supernaturally willing their neighbors towards mob violence compares to Dostoevsky in its insight into the savage punishment life enacts for selfishness and cruelty. And it's heroic cast of outsiders, ruined creatures united in their shared capacity for suffering, is equally uplifting and tragic. I think I'd have to put this somewhere on the list of top novels of the 20th century, full stop. Definitely pick it up if you don't mind a challenge.

The Strangers in the House by Simenon – A washed up lawyer, long given over to introversion and alcohol, is stimulated back to life by the discovery of a corpse in an unused bedroom. This is great literature but second rate mystery, with a fascinating anti-hero and an arbitrary conclusion. Still lots of fun.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller – A pair of couples in rural post-war Britain feel things, notice the weather. I didn't hate it, but it does feel like something that would be shortlisted for the Booker.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood – A lovely little novel about growing old, loving a man, Los Angeles, time and death. Isherwood's surrogate is sad, desperate, sympathetic, and admirable. Life-affirming though never mawkish

Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers – Maybe the best sci-fi book of all time? Re-reading it I was struck by how interesting it is that it's set in America, and also how structurally strange and fun it is. Scary and mean and smart and sad and sweet.

War of Time by Alejo Carpentier – Short stories by an under-appreciated master. You can see the similarities between Marquez, but on balance these more resemble Borges, tightly-crafted pseudo-mysteries set in vividly limned antiquity.

Man on Fire by A.J. Quinnell – A hollowed out superkiller discovers his humanity through his relationship with a child he's sworn to protect, goes on a mission of vengeance one she's killed, becomes an Italian folk-hero, in this enormously enjoyable basis for about 5 different films and television. Although this is weirder and more fun than any of those, a first rate pot-boiler with sharp, funny language. I totally enjoyed this.

During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase – The loves and feuds of a country matriarchy as written by the collective spirit of the youngest generation of woman. A profound and illusive depiction of family, gender relations, and the hard edges and soft contours of the human spirit. This remains a really excellent book.

Books I Read May 12th, 2026

I'm late a week and the catch has not been impressive, but in my defense I've been putting out a lot of fires—some figurative and some, sadly, quite literal.

Late Fame by Arthur Schnitzler – An aging bourgeoisie discovers a second lease on life when his forgotten volume of poems inspires the enthusiasm of a new generation of artists. Extremely funny, if perhaps hitting a bit too close to home in its (really quite sympathetic) portrayal of the unalterable vanity of the writer, and particularly the hack. In short, still great.

Saga of Brutes by Ana Paula Maia – Three short, loosely connected stories about hard men doing the tasks societies likes to ignore. Tight, mean, very well-written, melodramatic, excellent works of genre fiction.

Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed – Reed's raucous, slapstick, inspired re-creation of the last days of a Confederacy as overlaid by the late 1970s remains funny and original.

Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 by John K. Thornton – Insightful revisionist history detailing the complexities of native warfare on the coast of central east Africa. A useful counterpoint to the commonly held misconception that politics and its inevitable violence remained in a 'tribal' status on the continent. Valuable.

Books I Read April 28th, 2026

Fell down on my reading a bit the last few weeks, but I've been busy with different projects, not to mention the extraordinary beauty of the spring flowers which are everywhere in bloom here in LA, such that the air is always thick with rose and jasmine, and you can walk across the city and never lose sight of some or other prismatic bouquet.

Biafra: A Military History by Roy Doron – According to Goodreads I'm the first person to have ever read this book, which I suppose suggests there were not that many other people hoping for a close account of Nigeria's Civil War (1967-1970). So I suppose it's up to me to personally thank Mr. Doron for this well-researched, seemingly balanced, and certainly thoughtful account of a one of Africa's many misunderstood post-Colonial conflicts. In truth, almost any post-Colonial history of Africa is difficult to find, and I commend him for filling in a small gap in the literature.

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud – The first in a stack of old favorites that I want to re-read. This remains fascinating and batshit.

The Black Cloth by Bernard Binlin Dadie – Re-tellings of African folk stories. Admirably weird.

God's Country by Percival Everett – The first and best of Everett's exercises in revisionist genre fiction, twisting the conventions of the western through an African-American perspective. I still find Everett really funny line to line, he reminds me a lot of Charles Portis. But this also functions effectively (if a bit obviously) as a meta-critique of the genre and America's deeply racist past.

All Shot Up by Chester Himes – Also still excellent. Himes did something really unique with his decalogue of noir, exploring the vices and hypocrisy of post-War Harlem through his violent anti-heroes, agents of the powers-that-be barely staying ahead of the corruption endemic in their role. Left me wanting to read another.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – I still appreciate Ms. Robinson enormously, and this is as effective an advertisement for Christianity as you'll find short of being healed by a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Books I Read April 13th, 2026

Keep your head up.

Yeah, you.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka– In a Sri Lankan version of the afterlife curiously akin to that of the movie Beetlejuice, the ghost of a hard-living homosexual war photographer searches for his killer, tries to save his loved ones. A perfectly engaging work of urban fantasy in an unfamiliar setting that also apparently won the Booker prize. On balance, I think I probably preferred the Alain Mabanckou book from a few weeks back which has basically the same plot.

People From Bloomington by Budi Darma – Short fiction loosely detailing the lives of middle-Americans in the eponymous Indiana locale, in which Darma completed his doctorate, written in the author's native Indonesian. In the introduction he explains it as gentle reversal of the Westerner tradition of exoticization when writing about the East, with his goal being to write stories which could be told anywhere. The result is a successful if curiously deracinated series of stories about lonely souls slowly going mad in tiny rooms in shared houses which does seem meaningfully accessible to individuals of many different cultural swathes. I enjoyed it.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang – Short science fiction of the sort which consists of working through the ramifications of an abstract intellectual premise, i.e. a universe in which divine creation is an irrefutable scientific fact, the development of AI humanity in a capitalist society. I generally don't care for this style of genre fiction, in part because the people writing it usually aren't very good at writing as writing but also because it's just really difficult to extrapolate in this vein in a way that feels interesting and original. Hughes is one of the few writers I've read capable of it. These are genuinely thoughtful, the questions they raise are serious and the answers they offer valuable. Good stuff.

Reasons of State by Alejo Carpentier – A surprisingly kindly entry in the genre of 'Dictator Fiction,' books written from the perspective of a tyrant. South America seems largely responsible for the creation of the genre, although in recent years the best versions have come from Africa. Carpentier's anonymous anti-hero is an amiable, cultured monster, whose amoral charisma keeps him atop his unnamed nation despite repeated attempts at revolution. Carpentier seems oddly fond of his creation given his monstrosities, which doesn't really detract from the fun of the work but is an odd perspective to take from a man who fled his native Cuba during the Batista regime. Update: Apparently he wrote this on a bet with Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Which makes sense.

The Rage by Gene Kerrigan – Competent Irish noir.

This Other Salt by Aamer Hussein – Short stories from a wealthy Pakistani living in self-imposed exile.

Creole by Jose Eduardo Agualusa – Epistolary adventures from a Portuguese aristocrat fighting against slavery in Angola and Brazil. Perfectly enjoyable.

Running Through Beijing by Xu Zechen – The misadventures of a pirate DVD salesman in Beijing, one of Xu's impoverished yet strangely honorable urban immigrants in a new China which feels at once infinite with possibility and cripplingly stifling. Totally up my alley, this was a lot of fun.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami – Far future science fiction.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut – Exaggerated retellings of the mental collapses of some of the major contributors to mathematics and quantum physics. This was perfectly engaging and philosophically coherent but I admit I was sort of hoping to have learned more about the actual subjects involved. Perhaps they're simply too abstract for a layman to grasp in even a simplified version.

Books I Read March 30th, 2026

RIP Taix, the greatest faux-French restaurant in the greater Los Angeles area.

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma – A madman's curse shatters a large, middle-class family, in this highly-stylized, almost biblical analogue for the internecine warfare of post-Colonial Nigeria. I thought it effectively portrayed the sentiments between the cadre of brothers who serve as the novel's protagonists. Very solid.

Pilgrim's Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah– An introverted, misanthropic immigrant suffers the indignities of an ex-colonial living among former colonizers. Shades of Philip Roth or John Fante in the internal monologue of a repressed intellectual obsessed with sex and status, with a touch of Naipaul's skepticism about the multicultural project.

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa – A severely disabled woman contends with the miseries inflicted on her by cruel nature and the restrictions of an uncaring society. Disturbing, at times erotic, provacative in the best sense of the word. A work which will challenge the perceptions of most people who read it.

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq – The Muslim woman of southern India struggle, not always in vain, against the patriarchal society which restrains them. Thoughtful and piercing, a fascinating look at an extremely foreign culture. Oh, the power of literature to express diverse points of view!

Books I Read March 24th, 2026

I spent the weekend in the mountain and the desert, looking at bewildering species of plant growth and avoiding several basking snakes. I read relatively little.

Xala by Ousmane Sembene – A Senegalese plutocrat is cursed with impotence, finds his entire life collapsing in this satire of post-Colonial greed. I guess it was also a movie? It was effective, if maybe a little on the nose.

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda – Short fiction.

Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan – Short stories by a guy who spent thirteen years fighting a Communist insurgency in the jungles of Malaysia. Which is obviously a fascinating premise, but I found these to be a little over optimistic, despite the subject matter, both in terms of there being a lot about losing limbs to land mines and also that the insurgency (as least as I can gather from the minimal role given to it in the West) fizzled out kind of pointlessly. Some lovely descriptions of the jungle, though, and fascinating insights into this peculiar lifestyle.

Self-Portrait in Green by Marie Ndiaye – An enigmatic narrator reflects on a live dotted by combative, intimate, re-ocurring relationships with a feminine archetype and her philandering, amoral father. Moody and dreamlike, an opaque narrative with subterranean rumblings of sex, women and hate. I liked it.

Books I Read March 16th, 2026

A friend died on the streets last week. She was 46. She had been homeless for about ten years. At one point I tried very hard to help her, but in retrospect it's clear I was too late. I'm left pondering the last possible moment of intercession, that final instant where the outcome of her story could be effected. Was it before she had taken to living in a tent? Before her first hit of meth? Before whatever misfortune and suffering led her to seek that refuge? When she was a teenager? When she was a child? When she was newly born and slick with after birth? How deep goes our rot?

There are some very fine things about being human and there are some things that are very terrible.

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride – The well-written stream-of-conscience of a precocious acting student devolves into a Mills & Boon novel of the 'tortured genius is saved by the love of very special woman'. I read McBride's excellent and difficult Hotel Dreams last year and was unprepared for this very peculiar novel, which (I think unintentionally?) mixes literary stylings with the most absolutely banal plotting. There's this odd quality one usually only finds in self-published novels (or novels that should be self-published), in which the author too clearly relates to her Mary Sue-esque heroine and the entire escapade serves to function as this kind of tawdry exercise in literary masturbation.

Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye – Having read a few books recently which did a shitty job of genre-izing the Holocaust, I had an urge to re-read this small-town Gothic horror, which at once serves as a truly disturbing work of nightmare and as consideration of inherited guilt.

The Deep by John Crowley – A sharp, strange, difficult but riveting work of fantasy. If Gene Wolfe hadn't written Book of the New Sun this would be the foremost entry in the Dying Earth subgenre (sorry, Jack Vance).

The Chill by Romano Bilenchi – A sensitive Tuscan youth suffers through late adolescence, the discovery that he is surrounded by a society of cruel hypocrites from whom he will forever be estranged.

Beijing Sprawl by Xu Zechen – A rural immigrant to early 90s Beijing reports the tragic misfortunes of his group of his roommates and acquaintances – alternatively violent and innocent, cruel and kind, all desperate trying to find meaning in a society which is rapidly changing beyond conception. Sad an lovely. It reminded me a bit of Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats, in its depiction of a scuzzy urban underbelly redeemed by its inhabitants somewhat eroded sense of morality.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey – The contemplations of the crew of the international space station over the course of a single 'day' in space, 24 hours spent engaged in the minutia of life as an astronaut along with scattered reflections on the nature of humanity, our relationship with the earth and each other. It's an excellent work of scientific writing, as well as being uplifting without being cloying. I like it just fine.

Kissing the Sword by Shahrnush Parsipur – A memoir of the author's five odd years spent imprisoned by the Islamic Republic. By God, I've read a lot of prison memoirs in my life. Oh, the sickening and universal brutality of man! Anyway, this was good I'll pick up some of her fiction.

The Pastel City by M. John Harrison – Derring do on a Dying Earth. This week's second dip into that sub-genre was a lot less enjoyable than the first.

Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia – A crew of secretly decent brutes working in a slaughterhouse in an impoverished corner of Brazil investigate a terrible mystery afflicting the herds. Many years ago I spent a few weeks on a cattle ranch in the Pantanal, helping mend fences and drinking cold mate. I can vividly recall the vacqueros, illiterate physical geniuses who could roll a cigarette with newsprint while riding a horse, and carried heavy revolvers to deal with wild boar. They also loved dulce de leche, during meals in the messhall we’d sit on these rough hewn wooden tables and they’d eat it by the spoon full. That's neither here nor there, I suppose. But this is very good, blunt, bleak and brutal, full of masculine swagger without going into excess or absurdity. I really liked it and will pick something else up by Maia shortly.

Books I Read March 2nd, 2026

My bread came out badly this week, and I didn't really like any of the books I read. Also, the world is ending.

Lonliness by Clark E. Moustakas – Existential pablum..

The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix by Alain Mabanckou – A woman documents the division and collapse of her country, family.

Doomi Golo—The Hidden Notebooks by Boubacar Boris Diop – An aging elder recounts his personal and national history in a series of interwoven, surrealistic texts.

Study for Obedience by Sara Bernstein – A miserable Jewess returns to a country which is not Germany to suffer a psychological breakdown, contemplate the ubiquitous guilt of man. I think there's something tacky about exploring the tragedy of your grandsires as if it was your own, and tend to be hyper-sensitive at the attempts of Semites to co-opt the moral force of the shoa for contemporary works of fiction.

Books I Read February 23rd, 2023

Went to the New Year Parade in Chinatown yesterday, watched a band of mostly Latin bagpipers play the Caledonian March in front of distant mountains left snow-capped by the week's rain. I would also like to add that there is a very big difference between a short list and a long list.

This Other Eden by Paul Harding –The inbred descendants of a freed slave and his Irish wife live out their final days on a tiny island off the coast of Maine. A genuinely odd, interesting setting, along with a story full of rich detail and vibrant characterization. There's something maybe a little...over-clever about it? Stylistically and philosophically, it seems very in sync with the literary trends of the moment. But you can't deny the artistry or skill.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R.H. Tawney – Modern capitalism and the notion that economic activity should be unencumbered by conventional ethics was the unintended offspring of the Reformation. I picked this up completely arbitrarily because it was mentioned in a Walter Tevis book—I have a thing about following authors I like into author's I don't know, it helps me read things I wouldn't have otherwise. This was dense but brilliant, and it left me with two thoughts, one regarding the content of the essays, the other their quality; the first is that it's always kind of staggering to think that there was a long period of human history where people actually cared about God, and the second is how much smarter everyone used to be. There isn't a public intellectual alive who writes with this much clarity and vigor, and if there is you can sure as shit believe no one is reading him.

The Road Does Not End by Olubunmi Familoni – A street child finds fame.

The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Argualusa – A soul reincarnated into a gecko and his master, a forger of identities, navigate the tragic and turbulent history of modern Angola. If asked, I would say that I'm pretty much over magical realism, but every so often you do read something which works and this is one of them. The writing is lyrical and evocative and it doesn't overstay its welcome. I like Argulausa and am looking forward to the next thing I've got by him on the shelf.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden – A repressed young woman in post-war Holland finds her life shaken by the arrival of her cad brother's girlfriend. An enchanting and well-realized queer romance, if extremely predictable. That I knew what was going to happen basically from page 2 didn't stop me from enjoying it.

By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah – Two Zanzibari exiles whose pasts are miraculously intertwined recount existences marred by misunderstanding, bitterness, anger, and a corrupt and totalitarian government. Sympathetic, well-executed, Gurnah has an earthy humanity to him which makes for a morally satisfying read.

Books I Read February 16th, 2026

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood – An embittered atheist flees her bourgeois existence for the shelter of an order of nuns in the distant outback, survives a mouse plague, considers the enormous guilt incumbent in human existence. Shades of Marilynne Robinson in this somber examination of Christian morality, albeit of a less enthusiastic hue. But it was thoughtful and kind and I enjoyed it.

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa – The childhood, adolescence and early manhood of a precocious rebel in post-independence Uganda, surviving the despotic violence of his parents, school officials, and the actual governmental despots installed in Uganda during that period. Excellent. A deeply considered, wide-ranging bildungsroman, full of humor and vital insight. I was surprised and a little saddened to see that Isegawa doesn't seem to have written much besides this.

The Marriage of Anansewa by Efua Sutherland – A wily everyman cons several local chiefs into getting engaged to his daughter. Lyrical and entertaining.

West by Carys Davies – A late 18th century farmer travels west of the Mississippi to look for dinosaurs, leaves his daughter back East.

Books I Read February 8th, 2026

Gonna bring it together this week. Gonna push.

The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier – A hack composer ensconced in bobo Manhattan is drawn to the fecund wilds of South America, journeying up-country into the dawn of man. It reminded me of Henderson the Rain King and of Saul Bellow generally, a masculine, verbose and conspicuously brilliant narrator grappling with sex and art and various other vital forces which compose human existence. Actually, Bellow is an interesting comparison to a lot of early Spanish American magical realism, with his sex obsessed protagonists undergoing hyper-real torments. I digress. I actually tend not to love books written in this style these days, but this was very strong. Carpentier was brilliant and his knowledge far-reaching and idiosyncratic, and this is excellent if a little racist.

Murambi: The Book of Bones by Boubacar Boris Diop – An exile returns to post-genocide Rwanda.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo – A girl grows up in a slum in Zimbabwe, emigrates to America.

A Different Bed Every Time by Jac Jemc – Experimental short fiction.

Mockingbird by Walter Tevis – The last sentient robot watches the human species decay into solitude and idle pleasure, until an unlikely pair of rebels re-discover the written word. Walter Tevis is criminally underrated, and this is everything you could want in this form of science fiction satire—prescient, insightful, engaging. A more optimistic A Brave New World, in terms of content and quality.

Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah – A young man surmounts the decrepitude, moral squalor, and constant pedophilia of pre and post-colonial Zanzibar. There is a lot of stuff in this book which is genuinely distasteful – I really cannot overstate the prevalence of homosexual child rape, which seems to have been a real feature of Gurnah's childhood – to the point where I was almost ready to wave it off midway through. But from this horror Gurnah manages to craft something meaningfully life-affirming, no small feat.

Books I Read February 2nd, 2026

Alas, another week with a weak tally. I'll be kind to myself and attribute it being busy in other areas. In any event.

Dealing with the Dead by Alain Mabanckou – As told in the second person, a recently deceased ghost struggles to return to the land of the living, meets a menagerie of characters personifying Congolese history and society. I like Mabanckou quite a bit, his books are different but always lively, and the various asides which make up the narrative strange and compelling.

The Redemption of Galan Pike by Carys Davies – Short fiction about lost souls on the prairie in a style reminiscent of but slightly kinder than Flannery O'Connor. Carys Davies does not actually live out on the prairie (best as I can tell), and there is something slightly performative about these, but still they're pretty great, bitter when they're supposed to be bitter, funny when they're supposed to be funny, and everywhere surprising. A lot of great stings in these, particularly the eponymous. Definitely dug it, will read another one of hers shortly.

The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia – Two women find themselves bound together by kidnapping, an improbable past relation, and the patriarchal evils of Nigerian society. Realism interwoven with the occasional impossible arrangement of fate is very much a trend within modern African fiction (come to think of it, this is actually a pretty established subgenre across the planet at this point), with last month's The Orchard of Lost Souls being another example, and this is a confident example of that form.

The Dilemma of a Ghost by Ama Ata Aidoo – A man and his black-American bride return go Ghana, feud with his extended family. Again, the struggle between modernity and tradition was a (the) major concern of post-Colonial African literature, but Aidoo was a great talent, and the language here really sings. I need to pick up more by her.

Books I Read, January 26th 2026

Didn't read up to my usual quota this week. Hope that doesn't become a pattern.

The Chase by Alejo Carpentier – A Cuban revolutionary is pursued by all sides at the end of the Batista regime. Very much in the Bolano vain (particularly The Amulet), though one wonders if this was because Bolano was referencing him or only that they underwent similarly formative experiences. Swirling and surreal, far the most difficult Carpentier novel that I've read, but nonetheless excellent.

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford – A independently-minded London business secretary finds love, apocalypse-inducing magic during the early days of the Blitz. Spufford marries an uncommon gift for crafting engaging characters with an original take on classic urban fantasy and an innate humanism that I can't help but find compelling. At that rare and poignant intersection of high literature and genre fiction. Great stuff.

The Seven Solitudes of Lorsa Lopez by Sony Labou Tansi – An anarchic Rabelaisian satire of modern Zaire. Magnificent. The writing is brilliant, funny and strange and powerful. The winding story of a forgotten people seeking justice in an uncaring world achieves a universal profundity far beyond political parity, speaking to the highest concerns of the human being. Really enjoyed it.

Dorodango: The Japanese Art of Making Mud Balls by Bruce Gardner – I make mud balls now.

Books I Read January 19th, 2026

I am concerned, at the moment and about other things, that they will never print a vinyl copy of Time: The Revelator by Gillian Welch. If ever there was a record that deserved to be pressed into wax! Maybe the greatest lyricist in popular music, with respect to Townes Van Zandt and MF DOOM. Everything is Free Now is a profound statement about existing as an artist in modern capitalism and as for I Dream a Highway, well, that's just in the American poetic canon full stop. What will sustain us through the winter? Where did last year's lessons go?

Indeed. Also worth noting that pretty much everything I read this week was fire.

Blackass by A. Igoni Barret – A desperate Nigerian man-child awakes to find his skin turned white, makes his way across a vividly drawn Lagos, quickly adopts the indulgent selfishness of a colonizer/all peoples. In lesser hands this could easily be bungled into the usual humorless polemic, but Barrett creates a genuinely thoughtful satire on race relations, capitalism, and general human shittiness. Good stuff, I'll look up another by the author.

The Lights of Point Noire by Alain Mabanckou – The author returns to his native Congo twenty-years after leaving, meets his extended family. A loving and vibrant exploration of childhood, place, past, etc. Mabanckou is a vivid talent.

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner – A surreal, fantastical sound poem becomes...something else, I won't spoil it. Fabulous. More than fabulous, unique. How often do I write that in a review? Not a lot. It's barely the length of a novella and worth pushing yourself through to the ending so you can read it twice.

A Mosque in the Jungle by Othman Wok – Engaging tales of pulp in an unfamiliar setting written by, apparently, a major Singaporean minister? For a book I picked up because it came up on my app while I was searching for a wok cookbook it was pretty fun.

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo – A recently-widowed Indian immigrant and his daughter take shelter in the pain of their mother's loss/the arrival of puberty in vigorous games of squash. Spare but lovely, Maroo's writing is stripped of anything extraneous,

Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler – A post-war bourgeois Vienese doctor is driven to erotic nocturnal misadventures by his partner's theoretical infidelity. The basis for Eyes Wide Shut, but it works a lot better as a novella than a film. Schnitzler was an enormously talented writer, who worked effectively in a variety of genres and styles.