Books I Read September 28th, 2026

This week I was privileged to have my book, The Builders, released in Farsi.

Alas, I cannot actually receive a copy, as our borders are closed to the unjust and absurd war currently being waged against Iran. That a single individual is able to initiate a military conflict against another country (with less consideration than I give to what I'm cooking for dinner) is so obviously against the intent of the founding fathers, not to mention all common sense and decency, as to sicken any genuine servant of democracy. It must be said, however, that this general drift has been taking place across political parties and for decades, inculpating all of us in guilt.

But, also, may Donald Trump die a thousand deaths, each more painful than the next. May his name become a curse in the mouths of his children.

To Bury Our Fathers by Sergio Ramirez – Ramirez's surreal masterpiece depicts a trio of failed-revolutionaries, from their chaotic upbringing and military training to their miserable deaths. Despite having been a (successful) revolutionary himself, Ramirez's text is utterly without any patriotic sympathies, for his characters or even revolutionary movements in general. His interest is on the petty failures and forgotten defeats of would be Bolivars, philanderers and cowardly humanists who suffer less for any ideal than out of some unhealthy composite of machismo and revenge. I enjoyed this on a second read as much as I did the first.

The Legends of Khasak by O.V.Vijayan – A brilliant PHD student gives up his future to teach in a tiny school in rural Kerala, enters the strange, tragic lives of its eccentric inhabitants. A slender, affectionate novel about the syncretic faith and unlikely superstitions which beguile the eponymous town and which point, in some strange and ineffable way, to the eternal. Sad and sweet.

The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford – A cast of disparate heroes attempt to keep an alternate-history Byzantium from taking over England. I enjoyed this much less on a re-read.

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono – A Cameroonian villager becomes the servant of a pair of venal, loathsome colonials, is unjustly destroyed. This was a competent entry into a subgenre which contains a large number of exceptional texts.

After Many a Summer Dies a Swan by Aldous Huxley – A Los Angeles magnate and his associated hangers on listen to the endless pontifications of Huxley's authorial surrogate. This is the sort of book in which one character will give a several page speech which does not resemble any conversation ever had by any human being and another character will then spend several pages thinking about how wise the first character is. This is a horrible form of writing, and I would have disliked this book even if Huxley's philosophical thesis wasn't hollow and inane. I hated, hated, hated this book. It took every ounce of my strength not to DNF it.