Author Archives: Kasia Bartoszynska

This was both more and less interesting than I expected it to be. Coming hot off a widely discussed New Yorker article that also delves into the non-typical living arrangements and relationships of a woman intellectual whom many consider deeply unlikable, I was sort of expecting to think more about “genius” and social conventions, andContinueContinue reading “Sempre Susan, Sigrid Nunez”

There’s a slightly Madlibs-ish quality to these poems, in that various words are utterly incongruous, such that they almost seem like a joke. But (like good Madlibs!), they’re also pretty great. They are often playing with tropes from fairy tales, with a distinctly witchy twist.All of this might make it sound like they’re primarily plotContinueContinue reading “The Nightgown and Other Poems, Taisia Kitaiskaia”

This novel puzzled me in tantalizing ways — it did all kinds of things that I didn’t expect, and that didn’t quite make sense; which I was tempted to say were flaws, but that came to seem essential. The novel has an irregular structure: four parts, the first with two chapters, the next two withContinueContinue reading “Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah”

Not sure why I thought this would be a fun, light, airplane read, but ooof. It kind of destroyed me. It’s a terrific book — and it is fast-paced and absorbing — but it’s also tough, emotionally. It’s a real deep dive into some of the more difficult parts of parenting — particularly the balanceContinueContinue reading “The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan”

I love an unlikely pairing. One of my favorite things is when two seemingly unrelated, utterly different books that I’m reading end up connecting in unexpected ways. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Girlhood, by Melissa Febos, and about some of my frustrations with it, and as the day went on, I realizedContinueContinue reading “Akrasia and Unwanted Sex”

I had very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the prose is great — it really gets under your skin in a very visceral (and sometimes pleasurable) way — and there are some really interesting observations, and ways of bringing different facets of a topic together. A lot of the essays reallyContinueContinue reading “Girlhood, Melissa Febos”

It’s sort of interesting that this book is not better, because the story has so much promise — a young, fairly naive, Mexican woman goes to Cuba in 1970 to teach ballet — and the author seems to be a skilled writer who knows a lot about Latin American politics (and writes wonderfully, and vividly,ContinueContinue reading “Dancing with Cuba, Alma Guillermoprieto, tr. Esther Allen”

I saw the movie over a week ago, but I’m still thinking about it. It’s a travesty that Sarah Polley didn’t get a Best Director nomination for it. The movie is beautiful — a really moving portrayal of women being in community together. I was just finishing reading Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy when IContinueContinue reading “Women Talking”

This book was absolutely incredible, to be placed alongside writing by Alexievich, or Herrera, on historical atrocity, and the attempt to find the words for it. This one stands apart for its interest in dreams, and its uncanny mythic quality.I’d be curious to know what my Turkish friends think of it though, especially the wayContinueContinue reading “The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales, Ferit Edgü, tr. Aron Aji”

This is a really odd novel, hovering between realist critique and surreal symbolism. The premise is that the protagonist, Shibata, fakes pregnancy out of frustration with her colleagues at work and their sexist demands. Although there is initially some attention paid to the logistics of such a hoax, as the novel progresses, it fades intoContinueContinue reading “Diary of a Void, by Emi Yagi, tr. David Boyd and Lucy North”