Monthly Archives: August 2024

I had meant to read around in a bunch of graphic novels this summer to make some changes to my class syllabus, but in typical fashion, it was just after I finalized the readings and set up the canvas course and everything that I started tearing through piles of graphic novels. A friend introduced meContinueContinue reading “The Lucky Poor, by Mazie Lovie”

I’m a big fan of Kevin Kwan. He basically writes 18th-century fiction adapted to 21st-century sensibilities, but only just barely. It delights me. Like, Lies and Weddings has a plot that could almost be transplanted wholesale into a Burney novel (if you made everyone white). It’s especially satisfying, too, because it indulges in a deliciousContinueContinue reading “Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan”

This is an earthy, engrossing tale, full of surprises, bizarre but frequently moving. Though sprawling in scope, it also seems tightly controlled and skillfully constructed. It reminded me of Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound (though I read that book many years ago, so maybe they’re actually quite different…) — both have elements of magicContinueContinue reading “Whale, by Myeong-kwan Cheon, tr. Chi-Young Kim”

Just over a year ago, I was mindlessly scrolling Twitter when I saw this I had done something similar before, reading each of the letters in Richardson’s Clarissa on the day it was written, and I loved the new understanding it gave me of the text in time — a totally different sense of itsContinueContinue reading “Anniversaries, by Uwe Johnson, tr. Damion Searls”

I know that many people think of this as the perfect book, and it is really excellent, but I read The Spare Room first, and liked it even more. This is different — it jumps around a lot, in both time and perspective, and it does so in really interesting ways. But what really makesContinueContinue reading “The Children’s Bach, Helen Garner”