Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m a big fan of Kevin Kwan. He basically writes 18th-century fiction adapted to 21st-century sensibilities, but only just barely. It delights me. Like, Lies and Weddings has a plot that could almost be transplanted wholesale into a Burney novel (if you made everyone white). It’s especially satisfying, too, because it indulges in a deliciousContinueContinue reading “Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan”

This is an earthy, engrossing tale, full of surprises, bizarre but frequently moving. Though sprawling in scope, it also seems tightly controlled and skillfully constructed. It reminded me of Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound (though I read that book many years ago, so maybe they’re actually quite different…) — both have elements of magicContinueContinue reading “Whale, by Myeong-kwan Cheon, tr. Chi-Young Kim”

Just over a year ago, I was mindlessly scrolling Twitter when I saw this I had done something similar before, reading each of the letters in Richardson’s Clarissa on the day it was written, and I loved the new understanding it gave me of the text in time — a totally different sense of itsContinueContinue reading “Anniversaries, by Uwe Johnson, tr. Damion Searls”

I know that many people think of this as the perfect book, and it is really excellent, but I read The Spare Room first, and liked it even more. This is different — it jumps around a lot, in both time and perspective, and it does so in really interesting ways. But what really makesContinueContinue reading “The Children’s Bach, Helen Garner”

Someone on goodreads wrote “to nie książka, to kołderka!” [This isn’t a book, it’s a blanket!] which is actually a great way to describe it. What a charming, winsome text. It’s the diary of a young queer Jewish guy who works at the zoo, kept from 2013-2023. The entries are brief and sporadic — it’sContinueContinue reading “Pawilon Małych Ssaków, Patryk Pufelski”

I made my bookclub read this, and I was a little worried that it would be a bit too wacky and experimental for their tastes, but I needn’t have been — they mostly wanted to ask me a ton of questions about translation theory and publishing. Which may seem like a knock on the novel,ContinueContinue reading “The Extinction of Irena Rey, Jennifer Croft”

I first read pieces of this book in college, in the Intro to Lit Theory course that I took with Bill Ray (a class that really rocked my world, both when I took it and then again, repeatedly, when I thought back on it over the years. How much I learned there! How little IContinueContinue reading “Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa”

I discovered this book in a very roundabout way — because Danica Novgorodoff, whose work I’m always on the lookout for, illustrated the graphic novel version. But when I ordered a copy, I got the actual book instead. Flipping through it, I was immediately intrigued, because it’s a novel in verse. And it’s really good!ContinueContinue reading “Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds”

My kid is thisclose to being able to actually swim independently enough that I don’t need to be hovering nearby in case the lifeguards are not at their most attentive, and I might actually be able to spend some time on a lounger with a good book, which feels like an appropriate occasion to writeContinueContinue reading “The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng”

It’s hard to find good books for first-graders that address slavery and racism in ways that are informative but not terrifying. Obviously, the history is terrifying, but I am not persuaded that it’s useful to convey the depths of that trauma to a 6-year-old who is only just starting to learn about these topics. NorContinueContinue reading “Juneteenth for Mazie and Juneteenth, Our Day of Freedom”