Books I Read, October 4th 2026

Slow week reading-wise, though I attribute that to the obscene heat wave that we're currently surviving here in LA. Hope things are better in your neck of the woods.

A History of the Hussite Revolution by Howard Kaminsky – There's not a great deal about the Hussite's freely available these days, which was why I ended up leaping on this long discussion of the evolving theological beliefs of the proto-protestant Czechs, from their early utraquist leanings to the full scale eschatological fervor of the Taborites. Alas that there was virtually nothing about the political and military developments, which was what I was actually interested in, meaning that I pushed myself through this incredibly dry text for what I can once again only describe as literary masochism. Update: Going to Goodreads I discovered rather horrifyingly that I HAD ALREADY READ THIS BOOK, and somehow completely forgotten about it. This is going to be the source of some serious soul searching on my end, I can't lie. I need to do a better job of reading things that I actually enjoy.

Waiting for the Fear by Oguz Atay – Turkish Underground Men detail their absurdist drama and existential suffering in compulsive steams of consciousness. As a rule, I can't say that this is my bag, but Atay does it exceptionally well. This is weird and funny and depressing and vital, although I admit I don't think I could wade through the 800 pages of his magnum opus which apparently does the same.

Poems and Antipoems by Nicanor Parra – Poems by Chile's radical 20th century laureate. Some I liked and some felt like leftists diatribes without much aesthetic value. On the other hand...

What I say is, let's try to be happy, sucking on the miserable,

Let's extract from it the restorative liquid,

Each one following his personal inclinations.

Let's cling to this divine table scrap!

Panting and trembling,

Let's suck those lips that drive us wild.

A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle – Short horrors. I particularly enjoyed the weirder and more 'literary' ones, that is to say, less explicitly genre. Tuttle has a good eye for the horrors of motherhood in particular—I enjoyed the one about the 'white woman' and the one about finding your imaginary friend in an airport.