Human Nature: 9 Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet, Kate Marvel
I finished this over a month ago but we didn’t have our book club discussion about it until this week, and I was a little distressed by how much of the book I’d forgotten — one person in book club said that part of what the book does for him is that it arms him…
The Frog in the Throat, Markus Werner, tr. Michael Hoffman
A fun version of the unlikable male complaint novel — here bifurcated into twin monologues, the frustrations of a middle-aged, disgraced politician and his annoyed farmer father. Absorbing and amusing, and the two voices are wonderfully distinct (credit to Michael Hoffman, who is a terrific translator) and contrast in interesting ways. The ending disappointed me…
Near Distance, Hanna Stoltenberg
This is a wary, almost tense story of a middle-aged woman named Karin who leads a fairly solitary life — works at a jewelry store by day, spends the occasional evening out with a man she meets on a dating app. It picks up at a moment when her grown-up daughter Helene, who has just…
Palaver, Bryan Washington
Read this cover to cover on a flight with great pleasure. Like his other novels, it’s a tender, gentle story of people nursing various harms and finding ways to come together. What I always find so moving in Washington’s work is how beautifully it portrays love, not as an exclusive claim or demand, but as…
Patchwork, Kate Evans
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 and…
A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst
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 are…
The Long Form, Kate Briggs
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 audience…
Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy
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 ago…
Is This Thing On?
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 form…
Perpetual Law, Mario Bellatin, tr. Stephen Beachy
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 in…
Kasia Reads 