Books I Read October 12th, 2025

I made some pretty fabulous sandwich loaves this week.

Look at that – ain't she a beaut? I did some other things too, but that's probably what I'm most pleased with.

The Eye of the Storm by Patrick White – A loveless, dying matriarch is visited by her two horrible, horrible adult children, desperate for her to die so they can inherit her estate. Patrick White wrote two kinds of books—the first are this surreal or hyper-real depictions of Australian existence, and the seconds are bloodless drawing room novels, of which this is obviously the latter. Told mostly in inner monologue, it's the kind of book were nothing really happens but all the characters seem perpetually on the edge of a nervous breakdown, where all food exists as reminders of the entropic nature of existence (can no one in Sydney cook a lamb chop correctly? How many times must we be subjected to descriptions of fat congealing on a dinner plate?) and all sex is awkward and awful. Finishing it's 600 pages was an act of literary masochism for which I can only condemn myself.

Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha M. Linehan – The bible on the subject. Also, about the length of the bible.

Young Blood by Sfiso Mzobe – A young man in a Durban township finds himself caught in an underworld of car theft, drug dealing and death. Energetic and full of lived experience.

Fly Already by Etgar Keret – Keret's usual brand of surreal, modern, urban, sympathetic stories. Sad and sweet and always very human. I really enjoy Keret.

Texas by the Tail by Jim Thompson – The best craps mechanic in the southwest tries to roll his way out of penury. One of Thompson's 'sweeter,' less surreal works, but it's still got some remarkably insightful/horrific bits of psychosexual insight. No one straddled crime and existential despair like Jim Thompson.

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin Yalom – America's foremost existential psychoanalyst does his best to fill the yawning catacomb above which we all awkwardly straddle. Is there something wrong with me that I find Yalom a bit too much of an optimist for my tastes? Probably, but there we are.

Jaime Bunda, Secret Agent: Story of Various Mysteries by Pepetela – An obese Angolan detective raised on American crime novels investigates the murder of a teenage girl, becomes embroiled in the internecine government plots which plague modern Luanda. A satire of a profoundly corrupt society, ultimately more bitter than funny. Pepetela is a fascinating voice.

Enchiridion by Epictetus – Always useful to spend an hour or two with the stoics.

'You are a little soul carrying a dead body.'

'If you are ever very thirsty, take a draught of cold water, and spit it out, and tell no man.

'If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense to what has been told you: but reply, the man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only.'