Category Archives: Uncategorized

Continuing my aforementioned project of writing unintelligently about poetry — this book made me think about what marks a poet’s specific style, what makes it identifiable as theirs, and where the line is between that and a gimmick (no, I haven’t read Sianne Ngai on the gimmick yet; I will, I will). I thought aboutContinueContinue reading “Cain Named the Animal, Shane McCrae”

Ok, so I saw this on display at a bookstore, and I knew it was a big hit in South Korea, and the title is winsome, and it’s quite short, and it’s translated by Anton Hur, who also did Cursed Bunny (which is great) and is very charming on Twitter, so why not, I checkedContinueContinue reading “I Want to Die, But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, Baek Sehee, tr. Anton Hur”

I declared this one of my best reads of 2023, even though I hadn’t quite finished it on December 31. But when I finally did a month later, I had no regrets about the choice. It’s a really phenomenal book — a brilliant examination of contemporary culture, but also a really impressively balanced blend ofContinueContinue reading “Doppelganger, Naomi Klein”

I’m not entirely sure if this is the best or the worst thing to read if you’re feeling depressed, but it is a remarkable book. If you’ve ever had that feeling, when looking out on airplane window, or from the top of a very very tall building, or a mountain, of a simultaneous detachment andContinueContinue reading “Orbital, Samantha Harvey”

I went through a phase where I read a lot of grief memoirs. I think it started because I had seen Sonyali Deraniyagala’s Wave recommended as one of the best books of the year, and picked it up without knowing anything about it. I read it in less than 24 hours, so gripping did IContinueContinue reading “Notes on Grief, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie”

Recently, I was a guest on the podcast Philosophy Talk, in an episode where they give out awards for the Best Movies of 2023. I was there to talk about Anatomy of a Fall, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant film. I managed to contrive a way to talk about what I think isContinueContinue reading “Anatomy of a Fall”

This is an unabashedly woo woo (or as a friend of mine puts it, “West coast”) book about unlocking your creative potential. Clearly, part of the project is to provide some therapy to people who might not be willing or able to go to actual therapy, so there’s a lot of stuff about working throughContinueContinue reading “The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron”

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”