Books I Read, September 28th, 2025

At this very instant, the Almighty writes your future into his book of life. There is still time, through prayer and desperate apology, to earn forgiveness for your manifold sins of the past year.

Or, you know, not.

Hope by Erich Fromm – Humanistic optimism from a largely forgotten psychoanalytical socialist.

Transparent City by Ondjaki – A frantic, surreal depiction of Angola's capital city in its decadence, squalor, and beauty. There's definitely a tendency among African authors to use magical realism to accentuate the chaotic nature of their metropolis – see Mwanza Mujila Fiston and Alain Mabanckou for Francophile versions – which, having spent some time in the continent's urban areas, I can appreciate. But really the unnatural and impossible aspects of this are much less important than the sympathy and sensitivity with which Ondjaki depicts his home city. Strong stuff.

The Face of Tresspass by Ruthn Rendell – A dissolute writer decays in a country hovel, reminisces about a dangerous lost love in this psychological noir with shades of James M. Cain. Apparently Rendell was a ubiquitous crime novelist in England in her day, which surprised me a little in that her books are slick and small and (seemingly) a little too clever to reach mass market appeal. Good on her for bucking that trend, even if she seems largely forgotten on our side of the pond.

The Shadow of What We Were by Luis Sepulveda – A squad of aging ex-revolutionaries come together for one last job in a Santiago which seeks to forget its dark past—but a comedy! Brisk and funny and enjoyable, you get the sense that the author is enjoying himself.

Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride – A nameless woman experiences a series of meaningless love affairs in lonely hotels, reflects on the history which brings her to those points. Shades of Djuna Barnes. Largely (although not completely) plotless, your enthusiasm for this will depend on your feeling for McBride's artful, compulsively confusing writing style. I enjoyed it, but then I tend to enjoy these sorts of literary high-wire acts, especially if they top out below 200 pages.