Author Archives: Kasia Bartoszynska

I always feel like a complete novice, reading poetry. I feel like I don’t know how to read it properly. It is hard for me to slow down and be present and focused on such a very small block of writing where everything is happening right there, unlike in a novel, where things unfold graduallyContinueContinue reading “Facts for Visitors, Srikanth Reddy”

This is slightly embarrassing to admit but: the targeted ads on insta showed me a sweater that I immediately coveted, an image of a cat biting someone’s hand. I put it on my Christmas list, and Santa kindly delivered it, but in the meantime, I also looked up more information about it, and located theContinueContinue reading “Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu”

I probably wouldn’t have read this on my own, but my book club wanted to read it, so off I went. I had really mixed feelings about it while reading, and then the more we discussed it, the angrier I got. And then examining my anger, I turned into a cat chasing its own tail,ContinueContinue reading “This Other Eden, Paul Harding”

I have a strange relationship to Han Kang’s writing. I read The Vegetarian because so many people said it was amazing, and I really didn’t like it very much at all. Then, thinking it might be worth giving her another try, I listened to an audiobook of Human Acts, and thought it was really excellent.ContinueContinue reading “Greek Lessons, Han Kang, tr. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won”

I often do a Favorite Things I Read list and Best of Books Published This Year list, but this year it ended up making more sense to do just combine the two, because there was so much overlap. I was going to up it to a Top 12, but it turns out that PicStitch onlyContinueContinue reading “My Year of Reading, 2023”

I was expecting to be drawn in by the central plot premise of this novel — a young woman is the secret daughter of a prominent politician who has a quiet life with her mother on the side, and on the eve of her high school graduation, decides that she wants to reveal the truth.ContinueContinue reading “The Margot Affair, Sanaë Lemoine”

Another post I’ve been waiting to have the time for — I wanted to write about this alongside Terrace Story, and to consider their take on what we might call “literary science fiction” — but time marches on, so just very quickly: I wanted to like The Employees more. I did enjoy it, and theContinueContinue reading “The Employees, Olga Ravn”

I love the Storybooks series from New Directions. The idea of a short book for adults with a beautiful, large, easy-to-read font, and a gorgeous, shiny cover, is absolute genius. The collection is also perfectly curated — all the coolest authors; deliciously absorbing stories. I want them all. So it was a perfect Christmas treatContinueContinue reading “In the Act, Rachel Ingalls”

Every year, Top 10 lists start coming out in early December and I feel a. indignant that there’s still a whole month of the year left, how can these declarations be made now?!* and b. resigned to the fact that I actually don’t have the time right now to read all of the things IContinueContinue reading “Top 10 Books of 2023 that I Haven’t Read Yet”

I actually read this almost two months ago, and was so impressed with it that I wanted to take the time to write a more thoughtful and extensive post about it — and look where that got me. Back to the ol’ slap-dash it is! Just kidding. Sort of. I felt a renewed sense ofContinueContinue reading “Terrace Story, Hilary Leichter”