Author Archives: Kasia Bartoszynska

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve gotten older, or more sensitive, or the world has gotten scarier, or what, but ooooof, this was a tougher read than I remembered, mostly because the depictions of a society falling apart under the threat of nuclear war felt distressingly resonant, albeit highly caricaturish and stylized. Actually, inContinueContinue reading “Watchmen, Alan Moore”

I’m still seeking out absorbing page-turners rather than slower meditative reads, I think because summer is drawing to an end and meanwhile we still have boxes to unpack from the move, and I just need something easy and pleasurable. I thought this would serve my needs well, because I really liked Matrix, and at firstContinueContinue reading “Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff”

Buffalo Street Books asked if I’d lead one of the conversations in their Read Widely bookclub, and suggested this as a potential pick. I was glad to have the opportunity to re-read it, this time in English (in a really excellent translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones!), because it’s a novel where the last few chapters reallyContinueContinue reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones”

Felled by a summer cold, I wanted something that would pull me along, and this was just right. Described on the back as a “French Huckleberry Finn,” this is a pleasant fairy-tale like story (with mysterious Gypsies, because it’s French, though these are perhaps more than usually cruel) about a boy who goes on anContinueContinue reading “The Child and the River, Henri Bosco”

I checked this out of the library to read to my 6-year-old, because I’m a NYRB stan, and because the first line of the introduction (by Philip Pullman) said that it’s the funniest children’s book ever. And it is quite funny, but in a very Victorian British sort of way. Here’s a taste of theContinueContinue reading “The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay”

It’s funny, I read this like a month ago when I was feeling busy and overwhelmed and wanted a fun page-turner and then I only got more busy and overwhelmed, such that back then seems easy, because lately I barely get to read more than a few pages, or a poem or two, and itContinueContinue reading “Mapping the Edge, Sarah Dunant”

I first read this in my final year of college in a German literature course with Katja Garloff, where it completely blew my mind, and then again during my first semester of graduate school in a course with Eric Santner specifically about Sebald. I’ve been wanting to revisit it (this delightful essay by Lauren OylerContinueContinue reading “Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald”

Back in January, I set myself the goal of reading 6 Polish books this year, and halfway through the year, I was at…zero. Oooops. I was introduced to this collection by Antonia Lloyd-Jones in a (really excellent) translation workshop where we collectively worked on translating one of the stories, and maybe for that reason IContinueContinue reading “RuRu, Joanna Rudniańska”

The premise of this novel is that a young woman wakes up to find that she has written Baudelaire’s complete works. But it’s not a gimmicky postmodern sort of book — more like a beautiful, meandering meditation on being a woman artist. I loved it.

My soon-to-be-6-year-old child generally refuses to watch movies, preferring various youtube videos (of people unboxing toys, or playing with toys, or computer-generated animations of balls rolling down ramps, or very amateurish films with weird little plots — all kinds of things. I understand this is A Thing with this generation, but it is so deeplyContinueContinue reading “Ponyo”