Author Archives: Kasia Bartoszynska

I don’t know why I read so many graphic novel biographies, because I’m not generally that fond of them, but I guess it’s that I always feel like my knowledge of history is sorely lacking, and I’d way rather read something with cool art than a regular biography? And I’m teaching my Jane Austen andContinueContinue reading “Patchwork, Kate Evans”

I have no idea why this was the year that I read all the stuff that was on Best Of lists. It’s not a thing I usually do, but somehow they were all readily available as audiobooks from the library, so I just… did. And honestly, it mostly confirmed my suspicion that these lists areContinueContinue reading “A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst”

Look, we all knew I was gonna love this novel — a fragmentary novel about a new mother adjusting to life with a baby and reading Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and thinking about narrative and time. I mean, come on. Though the novel arguably has broader appeal beyond its ostensibly niche audience, that niche audienceContinueContinue reading “The Long Form, Kate Briggs”

A lot of books you see on the Best Of lists don’t live up to the hype, but this one really, really does. What a remarkable woman, what a remarkable life. Both Arundhati Roy and her mother. And how skillyfully she recounts their complicated personalities and interactions. When I read Azadi a few months agoContinueContinue reading “Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy”

I was thinking, as I left the theater, that I would love to see a list of movies that involve stand-up comedy, and perhaps especially, most interestingly, stand-up that isn’t especially good, but also isn’t bad. There’s something really intriguing to me about staging an intentionally so-so comedy performance. It seems like an art formContinueContinue reading “Is This Thing On?”

First book of 2026. I actually read it twice, because I got to the end and thought, wait, what? And it was so short that hey, why not? Bellatin’s Beauty Salon is maybe in my all-time top 10 favorites (it’s amazing) and Perpetual Law has that same mesmerizing, eerie quality, but it’s more opaque inContinueContinue reading “Perpetual Law, Mario Bellatin, tr. Stephen Beachy”

These aren’t necessarily the BEST things I read, but rather, the top 12 (because it makes for a better photo collage) books I read in 2025 that stuck with me. There are other excellent books that I read, like Ulysses, or Emma, that just stay with me always, are so much in the fabric ofContinueContinue reading “Best of 2025”

It’s hard for me to evaluate this book, because it was articulating an argument that I already agreed with before I read it. I would love to know how persuasive it is to someone who didn’t share those views. But what I think is so vital and important is that it is a critique ofContinueContinue reading “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, Peter Beinart”

This took me a long time to get through because it’s so incredibly grim. It’s also one of those graphic novels where I’m like, wait, you’ve tricked me into reading dense overviews of factual information by putting them in speech bubbles next to a drawing of a guy talking!! But it is also more generallyContinueContinue reading “Climate Changed, Philippe Squarzoni, tr. Ivanka Hahnenberger”

This is a great book to read on your own if you’re a literary studies person experiencing some existential angst, but it’s a really great book to read and discuss with a bunch of your colleagues in the humanities. I asked our Center for Faculty Excellence if we could have a reading group for itContinueContinue reading “Reasons & Feelings, Sarah Mesle”