Books I Read Feburary 28th, 2024

February was, by and large, another month best seen from a rear view. I had a book released, should that be of any strong interest to you. I also read...

1919 by John Dos Passos – America goes to war in the second of Dos Passos' epic, tragic U.S.A. trilogy. A scintillating tableau of selfish people making cruel or foolish decisions, along with some slightly less effective literary flourishes.

The Man Who Snapped his Fingers by Fariba Hachtroudi – An Iranian interrogator and his former captive reconstruct their relationship, history while exiled in Europe in this paean to the power of love, false and true.

Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Paul Manchette – A PI investigates a drug conspiracy in one of Manchette's more traditional, less effective efforts.

Living Better by Alastair Campbell – Tony Blair's head of communications discusses his lifetime of depression.

The Hunters by Jamers Salter – The author's experiences as a fighter pilot in the Korean war are reworked into this fascinating study of the nature of masculinity and violence. Reminded me a bit of Norman Mailer's Naked and the Dead (AKA, the not-shitty Norman Mailer book) in its pitiless exposition of the cult of the warrior.

A Scarcity of Love by Anna Kavan – Anna Kavan's shitty mother is the subject/target of this slim but still slightly interminable novel about weak-willed people controlled by the menacing egos of minor monsters. Elegant but self-pitying.

The Burnt Ones by Patrick White – A series of shorts about the repressed lives of middle-class Australians, Greeks. White is very talented but I might have hit my quota for vividly limned drawing room ennui.

Ambient by Jack Womack – A corporate soldier fights to survive a post-Apocalyptic NYC that's as much de Sade.




Books I Read February 6th, 2024

January was a month best seen from the back end. Better hopes for February. Since last, I read...

Sudden Arrival of Violence by Malcolm Mackay – The concluding volume in Mackay's trilogy chronicling Glasgow's premier hitman is as well-written and downbeat as the first two installments. A clever serious take on a classic format.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons – A charming if slightly overlong parody of a particular brand of morbidly rural English literature.

Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh – The events of an early massacre in post-Peronist Argentina as reconstructed by a crime writer turned journalist. Impactful in its depiction of the brutality and stupidity of fascist regimes.

Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke – A German pursues/is pursued by his ex-wife across America. Not for me.

The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler – After a knock on the head, an English professor adopts the persona of a pulp hero, stops world war from breaking out in a small, Eastern European country. Ambler's first novel, more staight adventure novel than true satire, and less effective than his later work.

Books I Read January 10th, 2024

Happy New Year. It is actually kind of cold in LA at the moment, which has made me lazy and sleepy and low. Here are the books I've managed to push myself through so far this year.

House of a Thousand Floors by Jan Weiss – An amnesiac seeks to overthrow the tyrannical leader of a towering city-state in this very early work of Czech science fiction. Ahead of its time.

The Cook by Mayis de Kerangal – An engaging if not particularly innovative or insightful examination of the chef as as a young man.

Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History by Heinrich Eduard Jacob – The history of human civilization through the frame of wheat/farming generally. The sort of idiosyncratic work which had already become dated by the time our Austrian polymath wrote it in 1942 (having only recently escaped a concentration camp). There's lots of fun stuff in here but little of it really holds up to scrutiny.

The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop – The erotic ramblings of the eponymous pervert. Wittkop's capacity to create beauty out of the most disturbing imagery is impressive on its own merits but even at 100 pages I really had to push myself through this one. Not for the faint-stomached.

Books I Read December 30th, 2023

Happy near New Year. I spent the last few weeks baking and cooking and eating far too much and catching up with family and old friends and enjoying the silvery east coast light. I hope that you enjoyed some of the same. I also read...

Vernon Subutex 3 by Virginie Despentes – The final volume in the history of the Subutex, ex-record store owner, homeless wastrel and prophet, and his band of belligerent misfits/acolytes. These are a treasure, fun and weird and cool and sad and smart. I bought the first volume for a friend for Christmas, you could do a lot worse than picking one up for yourself.

Sleep Has His House by Anna Kavan – A re-imagining of the author's miserable childhood and lonely adolescence re-interpreted through a series of surrealistic shorts. Evocative if a little predictable.

In A Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner – Short horror.

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford – In a world where the great mound-building civilizations of North America survived smallpox, a jazz-age detective investigates a murder which threatens to throw the eponymous capital into chaos. A top notch thriller in an interesting and original setting, good stuff.



Books I Read December 14th, 2023

If you can avoid doing so, I would strongly recommend not severing the tip of your index finger. Nevertheless, last week I read the following.

The Sky Weeps For Me – A Sandinista revolutionary turned police investigator follows an abandoned yacht into an international drug conspiracy. A surprisingly classic procedural from one of Nicaragua's literary luminaries.

Ice by Anna Kavan – A nameless government agent follows a faceless woman into a rapidly arriving glacial apocalypse. Surrealistic existential sci-fi horror of the highest order, although a handful of descriptors really don't do justice to this striking, strange, beautiful novel. Very good.

Chaos, A Fable by Rodrigo Rey Rosa – A cabal of youthful geniuses plot to upend the world order. One of those rare books which I think would have worked better if it had been a few hundred pages longer.

Books I Read December 6th, 2023

The year winds towards its conclusion. Here in LA the palm trees are strung with fairy lights and there are Christmas markets on the boardwalk. Every day I make a list of things that make me smile and most days the mountains are on there, and the winter blossoms. Last week I read these books.

The Good Cripple by Rodrigo Rey Rosa – A kidnapping goes awry in Rey Rosa's tight, bleak novella. Reminiscent of Bolano in its interweaving of violence and literature, Paul Bowles and severed limbs. Good stuff.

The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos-- A kaleidoscopic portrait of the American century in its infancy, Dos Passos combines the bittersweet stories of his cast with vignettes of major labor leaders, snippets of newspaper headlines and pencil doodles into a rough, sad, beautiful tableau. Really enjoyed reading this one, to the point that I carried a hardback into the restaurant and read it at the counter during my break.

Watch Where the Wolf is Going by Antonio Skarmeta – Youth, fascism, colonialism, sex, love and literature are the topics of this slim but excellent selection of short stories from one of Chile's reigning masters. This was excellent – I've spent much of the last year working through the titles of the now sadly defunct publishing house Readers International, which was putting out a ton of foreign language literature in the 80s, and its been an enormously valuable exercise.

Aurelia, Aurelia: A Memoir by Kathryn Davis – Memories of her dead husband and effervescent youth collide in a meditation (not really a memoir) about the impossible but unalterable movement of time, the inability of literature to effect an indifferent universe.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri – An unhoused resident of the eponymous metropolitan park considers his tragic life, the injustice of postwar Japan. Unremarkable but brief.


Books I Read November 28th, 2023

Last week I ate far too much and read these books.

The Enchanted Wanderer by Nikolai Leskov – Satirical myths celebrating/condemning Russian society. I found it interesting and entertaining in bits but basically couldn't say that it spoke to me in any particularly way as a modern reader, though of course it's an enormously rare book that can claim to do this in another language centuries after it was written.

How a Gunmen Says Goodbye by Malcom Mackay – An aging hitman's error results in all sorts of trouble for his successor and the criminal organization for which he works in this fast-paced, brick-blunt Scottish crime novel. Engaging and effective.

Versailles by Kathryn Davis – The life of Mary Antoinette/a meditation on the miserable certainty of time's inevitable passing as told through Davis's distinct style. It's weird but not as weird as her weird stuff which I liked better.

The Vagabond by Colette – A divorced vaudevillian finds/abandons love. Incandescently self-indulgent.

Books I Read November 21st, 2023

Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the US. I'll be hosting for the first time, and currently I'm on the hook for two breads, two pies, a quick bread, potatoes, carrots, and a squash orzo thing I'm doing in lieu of meat because my oven is tiny and half the people I know are vegan. Wish me luck.


Last week I read...

The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle – The lives of several lonely Americans in a far-flung Scottish village are upended when a landslide cuts them off from the mainland/releases magic back into the world. An engaging if light-hearted adult romance in several senses of the word.

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg – The story of an Italian peasant whose penchant for intellectual disputations saw him killed by the Inquisition. A fascinating episode but the work itself is pedantic and conjecture-ridden.

The Country of Too by Rodrigo Rey Rosa – A gun-thug finds himself intertwined in the struggle of an indigenous central American community against a corrupt government and the forces of international capitalism.

Vernon Subutex #2 by Despentes – The definitive Gen X hipster turned homeless vagrant becomes the epicenter of a cultural movement/the spiritual heart of modern Europe in the second part of Despente's endearingly odd ensemble epic. Vibrant, engaging, lots of fun.

Books I Read November 14th, 2023

Last week I cooked, baked, wrote, lifted, hiked, bought some records, and read the following books...

Arabesques by Anton Shammas – A novel about the complexities of identity and history written in Hebrew from a Palestinian Christian. As the name suggests, this is a complex, contradictory book, full of half lies and heavy truths. I liked it for its peculiar style and thoughtful humanism.

Open Closed Open by Yehuda Amichai – A mention in the above led me to this collection of poems by the first poet to work in modern Hebrew. Hopeful and kind.

I want to sing to the trees

that do not shed their leaves and that suffer

the searing summer heat and the cold of winter

and to human beings who do not shed their memories

and who suffer more than those who shed everything.

But above all, I want to sing psalm of praise

to the lovers who stay together for joy,

for sorrow and for joy.

To make a home, to make babies, now and in other seasons.
\


The Nine Guardians by Rosario Castellanos – The daughter of gentry in deep rural Mexico, as a child Castellanos witnessed the final obliteration of the system of Indian slavery which had existed in the new world, to some degree or another, for some four centuries. A privileged if miserable position by which to examine greed, bigotry, evil, family, society, Catholicism, Mexico, progress, suffering, and the grim and bloody workings of fate. Impressive stuff, Castellanos reputation is well-earned.

Books I Read November 7th, 2023

Wish me luck this week, I'll be baking bread.

Sorrows of an Exile by Ovid – Banished from Rome for unclear offense, Ovid wrote this series of poems bemoaning his exile and desperately trying to regain the graces of the Octavian. Comically lacking in the stoic virtues for which Roman society is traditionally esteemed.

Severina by Rodrigo Rey Rosa – A bookseller falls for a larcenous inamorata. Like a less apocalyptic Bolano, on whom Rey Rosa's work was an obvious influence.

Cheri by Colette – This middle-aged courtesan's relationship with a limpidly beautiful adolescent in the last days of the belle epoque was apparently not a retelling of the author's quasi-incestuous liaison with her stepson, but still one can discern that quality of fantasy, which is to say wish-fulfillment, which often creeps into a writer's work when they revisit old affairs. Which isn't a knock, this is very well written and effective as a work of adult romance.

The End of Cheri by Colette – Chronicling our eponymous Lothario's descent into post-war despair. Less effective than the first.

Books I Read October 31st, 2023

Happy Halloween to those who observe. For anyone interested, I made a credible Eddie Valiant last Friday evening. I also read...

Bloom by Delilah Dawson – Best to go into this knowing as little as possible, but I'm not spoiling much when I say it was the creepiest book I read this season.

Dr. Sleep by Stephen King

In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Five novellas by an early-ish writer of horror. I tend to find that genre fiction in particular dates badly, and four of these are interesting but not entirely effective stories of the 'it was guilt that drove him mad!' sort. The last is Carmilla, a Sapphic vampire erotica which is excellent and exceedingly ahead of its time.

Books I Read October 24th, 2023

Over the course of last week my hush puppy game has gotten pretty tight. I also read the following.

Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer – An overview of the artistic and cultural avenues by which WWI was remembered in Britain. Occasionally interesting but it doesn't really hang together. At some point the author describes it as being work for a novel which never came together, and that's very much how it feels.

The Wise Friend by Ramsey Campbell – Part of October's foray into horror. An academic and his teenage son explore the mysterious works of their mysterious aunt, a brilliant painter who might maybe also have been a witch. The set-up is familiar but the execution is top notch, Campbell is clever and the writing is good enough that page to page you don't really care that you more or less know where it's going.

The Limit by Rosalind Belben – A devoted husband cares for his terminally ill, incontinent wife, considers their strange and passionate love affair. Apart from an exaggerated interest in bodily function (to which post-modern writers seem curiously devoted) I thought the writing really crackled.

War with the Newts by Karel Capek – The discovery of a seemingly harmless species of semi-intelligent amphibians acts as a satire of capitalism, fascism, communism, Utopianism generally speaking, in this forgotten but influential text by Czechoslovakia's preeminent pre-war novelist. Strange and funny and sad in its prescience for mankind's continual capacity for self-destruction.

Books I Read October 17th, 2023

Working four nights a week as a line cook has diminished the speed of my reading, alas. Nevertheless, in the last two weeks I've managed...

The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani – Written by a Lebanese immigrant (who later returned back to Lebanon) the 'first Arab-America novel' proves to be a philosophical satire of a kind distinct to the early 20th century, deeply indebted to Emersonian optimism and pregnant with sadly unrealized hopes for the Arabic and modern world. It's interesting as a historical object but particularly given the tragic events of the last few weeks Rihani's grand thesis, that Western industry married with Eastern spiritualism would result in a world-wide renaissance, seems too obviously phantasmic to grapple with seriously.

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith – The only honest Soviet detective investigates a triple murder, contemplates the injustices of his country, species, plumbs the depths of his own commitment to justice. Very good. Well-written, sympathetic to its broad range of characters, full of twists which feel earned and meaningful.

Labrador by Kathryn Davis – A young girl's relationship with her brilliant, eccentric sister, their drunken, depressed parents, and an angel who may or may not exist. I've read quite a lot of entries in the 'female coming of age/magical realism' sub-genre but this really stands out. Davis had a fabulous turn of phrase and a fascinatingly odd mind, there are some genuinely original movements in here. Good stuff.

Books of Blood: Volume 2 by Clive Barker – I think one of these was sufficient for me.

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara – Homework for the new gig. For all my reading this might genuinely be my first text on business development, and it proved a fast, engaging read, with what seemed like some probably pretty good advice on running a restaurant. It also raised fond memories of that NOMAD truffle chicken from back in my NY days.

Books I Read October 3rd, 2023

This week I made some really laughably awful errors at work and read the following books.

Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney – A detailed description of a day in the life of a sous chef in a popular Manhattan restaurant. Engaging in its minutia, part of my homework.

Casanova's Homecoming by Arthur Schnitzler – The eponymous cad contemplates his decline on the road to his native Venice. Didn't hit me like Late Fame.

The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik – Impenetrable surrealistic Czech satire. Apart from its broadly anti-Soviet theme I confess I couldn't make heads or tails of this.

Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton – An anarchic childhood and misspent youth leads to owning a beloved Manhattan restaurant. More homework. Hamilton led a rich life and is a perceptive writer and I really enjoyed the first two-thirds of this, but the long final section about her Italian husband and adopted family kind of lost me.

Ambigous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane – A fictionalized retelling of the author's youth and education, first in a Senegalese madrasa, then in a French Lyceum, and the of the conflict between Western modernity and African/Islamic spiritualism. More a series of philosophical discourses than a novel per se, though I found these to be measured and thoughtful despite being a pretty strict (if unhappy) atheist.





Books I Read September 26th, 2023

Reading has slowed somewhat this month, in part because I've started working in a kitchen again and in part because I spent the bulk of it trying to work through William H. Gass's magnum opus.

Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette – An assassination attempt offers a bourgeois father opportunity to escape his conventional existence, kill several people. One of Manchette's best.

The President by Simenon – An aging French premier reflects on his career, corruption, the nature of political service, etc. One of Simenon's seemingly endless works of slim excellence.

The Last Time I Saw Hell by Simon Quinn – While working my way through the Tunnel (below), I gave myself permission to read whatever pulp crap I could find. This book, the second in a series about a spy working secretly for the pope, which I picked up off a swivel rack at Bart's Books in Ojai, fit that bill to a T. (It's even written on that old fashioned 70's paper that crumbles apart like flaky pastry.) Actually considering everything it wasn't bad, it's complete nonsense but it moves fast and doesn't get in its own way.

Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea – I picked this up for the same reason, though to less effect. A Jack Vance/Fritz Leiber knock-off of the sort which spends three pages describing a demon who gets killed on page 4. A worse slog than the Tunnel ended u being.

Books of Blood by Clive Barker – The kind of horror which somehow works despite you knowing where every story is going to go from the first page. Unoriginal but effective, I find myself wanting to read another.

The Tunnel by William H. Gass. – The bible-length culmination of 26 years of work by one of the 20th century's most talented writers of prose, The Tunnel is a Big Book, of the kind which resists easy estimation, an attempt to mine the darkest corners of the human psyche for...something? We'll get to it. Our Underground Man is Frederick Kohler, a middle-aged, morbidly obese, pencil-dicked, pro-Nazi who begins writing an embittered exploration of his awful, banal existence, while also (metaphor alert!) digging a tunnel in his basement. After 50 odd pages off an impenetrable introduction of the sort which seems de rigeur in post-modernist texts, it settles into a fairly comprehensible autobiography: long episodes of self-flagellation, recollections of failed love affairs, character sketches of our anti-hero's hateful wife, idiot children, false friends, drunken mother, bigoted father, etc., along with an enormous amount of attention paid to flatulence and micropenises.

There's a game I like to torment myself with when I'm reading this kind of mind-scalding opus, which is, basically, if I didn't know that a genius wrote this, would I think a genius wrote this? With Gass, at least, the answer is yes – line to line the man is a marvel, almost any page will have a phrase or throw-away metaphor which seems ineffably original, a genuinely new use of language. Those rare bits of text not mired in grotesque despair are beautiful, and even the larger portion of the book given over to excavating the banal horridness of existence is insightful.

The question, then, becomes whether you want to spend what will be many hours of your life in the company of so unpleasant a character as Gass creates, rather than, say, baking a cake, or watching football or going for a walk. Most of these sorts of post-modern masterpieces, books aiming to encapsulate an enormous swath of the human experience, allow for more levity and joy than The Tunnel, which is quite monochrome compared to the prismatic tableau of Ulysses or Petersburg. Still, at bottom Kohler is a cautionary tale, and Gass is attempting to obliquely demonstrate life's value by the minute inscription of a creature so incapable of appreciating them. This is not a nihilistic book in any sense, with Kohler's insistence that his experience represents the universal human reality ringing deliberately hollow.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that while I'm not sure it was worth a quarter-century of effort, or that I would casually recommend it, I enjoyed this and would consider it a success.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings by Paul Reps (Editor) and Nyogen Senzaki (Editor)

Books I Read September 12th, 2023


Autumn in LA, which is a real thing, is peeking its head through the endless sun. Cross your fingers for me, I got stuff going.

Fair Play by Tove Jansson –Continuing with my summer of re-reads, I picked up Jansson's brief, luminous meditation on art, nature, and the quiet joys of a long term love affair. I always enjoy spending time in Tove Jansson's brain.

Confidentially Yours by Charles Williams – A small town real-estate agent is framed for the murder of his new wife.

The Missionaries by Phil Klay – The effects of the US's decades-long policy of permanent warfare as explored through the lives of combat journalists, child soldiers, drug kingpins and military attaches. It's a diverse but well-realized cast, sympathetic and complex portrayals matched by a thoughtful dissection of the broader political situation. Klay does a masterful job of exploring how good intentions on the part of imperial powers invariably leads to horrifying results, never resorting to straw men or easy answers. Shades of Graham Greene, great stuff.

The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be a God And Other Stories by Etgar Keret – Brief accounts of surrealist-stricken Israeli man-children. Re-reading Keret for the first time in a long while he reminded me of Nick Hornby, with his not-completely-unsympathetic focus on the relationships and rituals which define modern masculinity. I really liked the one about the guardian angel who is a shitty friend.

Professor Bernhardi by Albert Schnitzler – Antisemitism, faith, the disputable merits of an uncompromising moral code are the topics of what turned out to be a play and not a novel by the writer of the recently re-discovered Late Fame, a favorite of mine. I don't read a shit ton of these but for what it's worth I thought it was on the nose.

The Fierce and Beautiful World by Andrei Platonov – In the harsh light of later history it's difficult to imagine the enormous burst of optimism which the establishment of communism in Russia must have been met by many. The hope that a rationalist technocracy would not only improve the economic circumstances of the average citizen but catalyze a cultural and even spiritual evolution, and the realization of how false that hope would prove to be, are the themes of these suite of stories. I confess my feelings are mixed. It's slow going. Platonov's plots are deliberately bare, and his language reputedly impossible to effectively translate. But there is a tenderness and beauty to them which crosses language barriers, and by the end of these eight stories I found myself touches and wanting to continue.

Hatful of Tigers: Reflections on Art, Culture and Politics by Sergio Ramirez – A paean to the early days of the Nicaraguan revolution and the stalwart support of Julio Cortazar. I really like Ramirez, he's a fascinating and laudable political figure and an interesting writer.

The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone – Ruminations on a childhood dominated by a talented, mercurial, narcissistic father and the bitterness it engendered in the author. Touching and well-realized and a little long.


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Books I Read August 28th, 2023

Back in blistering, beautiful LA. Read the following.

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry – This story of saudade-riddled gangsters warring for a ruined city in a dim future Ireland remains a personal favorite after a second read. The language is fabulous, the action is brutal, it's lyrical and funny and sad and quick and lots of fun. Definitely check it out if you haven't.

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby – A black sheriff battles white supremacy, serial killers in a small Virginia town.

Ronin: A Novel Based on the Zen Myth by William Dale Jennings – Another favorite which, on re-read, remains as good as I remember. Cheers for you, Danny! Thanks, Danny. Cheers also for William Dale Jennings, an early gay rights activist and occasional writer who tossed off this absolute gem of a book, about a monstrous thug and the boy samurai who seeks vengeance against him and the impossible entanglements of human fate. The language is very finely wrought, with no tossed off words and every sentence practically a koan. A book desperately demanding re-discovery.

A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy – The murder of a the son of a policeman in South Central Los Angeles serves as a vehicle to explore America's indifference to violent crime in black neighborhoods. Compelling in the sense of both 'readable' and 'makes a strong argument.' Excellent literary non-fiction.

Pavel's Letters by Monika Maron – An investigation into lives and deaths of the author's maternal grandparents, pseudo-Jews caught up in the shoah, as well as her mother, a prominent member of the East German government against which Maron was a vocal dissident. A thoughtful meditation on the opacity of memory, inter-generational betrayal and the necessity of forgiveness.



Books I Read August 21st 2023

I spent the week in bay-swept inlets, at Methodist sing-alongs, inspecting prize-winning chickens, and reading the following.

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn – The fractured testimonials of a mixed crew of humans and androids going mad on a spaceship in a distant galaxy. Weird and funny and sad.

Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev – A loosely fictionalized apologia for the crimes of post-Soviet Russia by a dissident journalist.

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell – Burnouts, bereaved fathers, brutalized woman and Civil War monsters occupy this selection of shorts from the Ozark's (favorite?) child. Woodrell is an excellent writer, effortlessly shifting between genres, with a sympathetic if judgmental eye for the flaws and tragedies of his cousins and characters.


Fatale by Jean Patrick Manchette – The eponymous wreaks havoc on a town of bourgeois monsters. Still lots of fun.

The Last Day of the Terranova by Manuel Rivas – The closing of his bookshop in a small Gallician town occasions reminiscences on revolution, woman, drugs, nostalgia, etc. I liked it page by page but found the end too neat.

Mightier than the Sword by KJ Parker – A princeling in an alternate world Byzantium investigates a series of pirate raids, considers the importance of literature.

Books I Read August 13th 2023

Spent a lot of this week on a beach, and some of it watching a meteor shower. I set myself the peculiar task of re-reading these reviews from back when I started doing them some 7 (!) years ago, which partially explains the re-reads.


The World a Moment Later by Amir Gutfreund – A recapitulation of the history of modern Israel as told through the lives of a number of dissidents, lunatics and burn-outs. This is something of a sub-genre within literary fiction—most obviously 100 Years of Solitude but also Alaa Al Aswany's Yacoubian Building and Olga Tokarczuk's Primevil and Other Times and probably about 10 more I can't remember off the top of my head. These days I tend to be less enthusiastic about this sort of sprawling, multi-character novel, maybe because I've read a lot of them, but in part because the characters in these tend to feel more like wacky collections of improbable attributes rather than fully fledged humans.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – I was not surprised to discover this was as good as I remembered it being. What's interesting is that Clarke, whose previous work sits so squarely within a specific literary tradition, here creates something entirely new and strange. The language is spare and beautiful, the narrator's voice imbuing the world with enormous vitality and kindness. I appreciate enormously a book which leaves me with a feeling of hope. A real favorite of mine.

Duplex by Kathryn Davis – A surrealistic exploration of girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, the suburbs, climate change, disappointment, nostalgia, other things. The language is striking and weird – it reminded me a bit of William Gass, every sentence requires careful parsing as a collection of words one has never previously seen on the page. It's pointless to discuss it in terms of plot and barely more in terms of theme (at least in the context of this brief review) but I enjoyed the mood and thoughts this evoked.

Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolano – Still great.

Innards by Magogodi oaMphela Makhene – A suite of short stories depicting life in a Soweto ghetto from apartheid to the near-future. Really good. Written in a mix of English, Afrikaans and (I think) isiZulu, the stories are raw and break in unexpected directions. Makhene's characters – betrayed women, drunken elders, quisling professors, a post-apocalyptic Boer – are distinct and interesting. I dug this, I'll keep an eye out for her next work.

Books I Read August 7th 2023

Howdy. Spent the last week sitting on beaches and reading books and thinking about other times I sat on beaches, reading books.

Guston in Time by Ross Feld – A short essay detailing the author's friendship with the eponymous neo-expressionist painter. Art criticism is pretty far outside my balliwick which is probably why I tend to enjoy reading it.

The Liar by Martin A. Hansen – A schoolmaster on a small Danish island intrudes in the lives of the inhabitants. Spare, slim, sad, pleasant.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby – The South's best get away driver takes on one last job, struggles with the curse of generational violence. Good stuff. It moves quick, the language is sharp and action punchy but still carries some kind of real human weight. I picked another one up by him right after so that's praise.

Old Calabria by Norman Douglas – A ruminative travelogue of a largely forgotten piece of post-unification Southern Italy. Douglas seems mostly famous these days as a pederast (which is quite an accomplishment, given the competition from other 20th century English writers) but this is fun all the same, interesting if not always coherent takes on the Italian history and culture.

Heat of Fusion and Other Stories by John M. Ford – There's a lot of poetry in here that brought the average down.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – An ex-cop investigates the murder of a shady preacher in a small southern town.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand – A sometime photographer and current casualty of the NYC punk rock scene becomes embroiled in a mystery on a secluded Maine island. The voice is strong and the plot moves quickly.