Author Archives: Kasia Bartoszynska

I don’t read mysteries all that often, but I do relish listening to Tana French’s novels. No idea if they’d work as well on the page (they probably would), but as audiobooks they’re fantastically immersive — thrilling, creepy, suspenseful. This one was slightly less so than the Dublin Murder Squad books, I think because theContinueContinue reading “The Searcher, Tana French”

This isn’t particularly amazing as a work of fiction — it’s clever, but also rather simplistic — but it is pretty fascinating as an historical document. It was published in 1938, and clearly registers an awareness of how dire and violent things were in Germany already, and it was an instant best-seller in the US,ContinueContinue reading “Address Unknown, Kathrine Kressman Taylor”

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone adapted this into a tv miniseries, because it feels about that size and shape. There’s so much going on — multiple character arcs that elegantly run together, jumping back and forth in time. Lots of wonderful, heartfelt queer romance, in what felt like very emotionally mature relationships, which wasContinueContinue reading “On a Sunbeam, Tillie Walden”

This really needs to be translated into English, because it’s such an interesting entrant into the Frankenstein discourse. The first part is a speculative argument that Claire Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Shelley, was the real author of Frankenstein. This will ruffle feathers — and it’s hard not to bristle at Bajon’s portrayal of Mary asContinueContinue reading “Ideot, Kasper Bajon”

I went to this movie knowing almost nothing about it, so I was not at all prepared for the feels it gave me. In retrospect, it was sort of obvious that a movie about a woman meeting her older self was gonna delve into questions about the kind of life a person wants to live,ContinueContinue reading “My Old Ass”

I unabashedly adore this book, and so I continue to put it on my syllabus just to get it into students’ hands. And it works — there are always a few who look at me, glowing, and say that it’s their favorite so far as if they were describing a new crush. Maybe because IContinueContinue reading “Bintel Brief, Liana Finck (again)”

I may be accused of bias, because Jamaica Baldwin is my colleague, but look, it’s not my fault that I have brilliant colleagues. This is a deeply personal book of poetry, not by being at all prurient or sensationalistic, but by pressing — gently, but insistently — on spots that are tender, difficult. But inContinueContinue reading “Bone Language, Jamaica Baldwin”

I’m sort of meh on historical fiction much of the time, so it’s not as damning as it seems when I say that this was fine, even quite enjoyable. After discussing it with a book club for two hours, I came to appreciate a lot more things about it: the complex ways it ponders theContinueContinue reading “Loot, Tania James”

I have very little interest in watching actual fights, but boy do I love reading about them. The recounting of a boxing match is akin to an act of ekphrasis, translating something into words that is fundamentally non-linguistic. The physicality of it, the bodily knowledge, but also the peculiar intimacy between the two fighters —ContinueContinue reading “The Longshot, Katie Kitamura”

A friend of mine said to me recently that she had just finished this book and was dying to talk to someone about it. Pretty irresistible, especially when she added that it is quite short. I bought it immediately. It’s the story of an alien who, while passing as human, records her observations of lifeContinueContinue reading “Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino”