3. Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
4. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
5. Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić
6. Rosewater by Liv Little
7. Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment by Laura Delano
I’m trying to read the International Booker prize Long List. I’ve also been in my death memoir era and Didion keeps coming up, so I’m interested in this latest rendition of her work.
The Year of Magical Thinking was my first Didion I ever read and still my favorite . It opens with her husband’s death from a heart attack and it’s a contemplation on their life together and their interdependence as partners and collaborators. It’s really good.
I loved the way it came together in the end and how the sisters navigated the their relationship. However, the early Mei and Yuki sections were hard for me because they felt like tropes — I would have loved a deeper interrogation of their characters.
So much DISCOURSE about this book. I feel like it’s only for the fans… but (and?) I have enjoyed it tremendously - both as an unfiltered view into how Didion processes the daily drama of her life but also as a residual meditation on creative and romantic partnership, parenting an only child, and realizing that we all essentially deal with the same shit for all of our lives…. Oh, you thought you resolved that 45 years ago…. Think again.
Lovely knowing your recent reads, especially your thoughts on Dear John. I have read abysmally little of her work, and have been wondering if I should read the others before coming to this.
I don't think think you need to read A LOT of Didion in order to make sense of Notes to John but you need at least The Year of Magical Thinking or Blue Nights. The Year of Magical Thinking is my favorite of her books (and I really don't care at all for her novels). The two memoirs are the first two books I read by her and turned me into a massive fan. Than last fall I did a Joan Didion reading project -- which made me face reality a little bit haha ... so now I have great respect for her but I know she is only human.
Bless Rumi and her profound observation - one that would hurt me too! I am interested to see/hear how reading less goes for you over the summer as someone who is also so addicted to reading. It is HARD to curb the thing you love but perhaps it'll make you realise even more why you love it in the first place...? I was very intrigued by Pathemata and then read that you suggest I do not start my Nelson journey there. I feel compelled to listen to you - where should I start? I feel like I have been avoiding Nelson for a while because all her work feels so different I can't quite work out where to go.
I know... out of the mouth of babes... Reading is such a gift when you are feeling alone and isolated, but it can also be isolatING. We do a lot of reading as a family - library trips, bookstore visits and quiet time together ... everybody reading their book in the same room. But it is MY favorite thing to do in the world and SHE needs more of me and more of life at this stage.
The other painful truth is that reading and writing for Substack has become such a vital part of my life and my identity -- but it is A LOT OF WORK -- and I need to make some choices because I don't believe it's sustainable for me with the current configuration of my life (FT job, family, etc).
Re: Maggie Nelson - I would read The Argonauts first because it's a great representation of "autotheory" -- her particular brand of weaving personal writing and memoir with theory and philosophy. The Argonauts follows a more straight-forward narrative structure than some of her other work, so even if you don't love the formal experimentation... you would still get a good sense for her style. And then I would read Bluets which is tiny and poetic.
I have definitely had seasons of my life where reading is taking me away from the world rather than into it. The comment from your daughter is exactly the type of feedback that should be honored and investigated. Some strategies I have used:
- Be a little less precious about "my time". I'm the type of reader who feels heavily the weight of mortality, wanting to make the most use of the limited number of books I will get to read in my life. Reminding myself that watching a "dumb movie", but doing it with someone I love, is also valuable.
- Change what I read. Something like short stories or essays, that's easier to put down or has natural breaks, can help feed the urge without such an intense amount of immersion.
- Find ways to read together. My family aren't big readers, but I might read a nonfiction book about a topic that interests my husband, so I can tell him about it, even if it's not something that I would "normally" read.
- Change reading routine. I love reading early on weekend mornings, when I'm the only one awake. I get to feed my desire without affecting my time with others.
- Read something that inspires you to life. For me, this is religious texts, but it could be anything that makes you want to go be alive!
Best of luck! I read less than usual in April because the nice weather made me want to be outside and doing things instead of having my head in a book, but I still got through some absolute bangers.
Reading is one of my favorite things to do in life, but it can also distract me from living it and being present. I balance this with designated date nights and I try to make it to a few literary events a month in the city. With a whole house to care for, Joe and Hugo, and my own personal life outside of them (friends, hobbies outside of reading and writing, etc.), the days of finishing more than 2-3 books a week are over, and I'm okay with that because my life is so rich in other ways.
Reading an exorbitant amount of books is another form of disassociation/avoidance for some. (And that's okay! No judgment to people who do that--I've done it in the past when times were tough) I love reading stories, but I also want to live out my own with the people I love in real time in real life. Back in the day, having your nose in a book was the modern-day version of your nose in a phone. Remembering this keeps things in perspective when I get too reclusive with my reading habits.
There is a season for everything. I am about to enter my splash pad + pool hang season as the school year draws to an end for Rumi and Kyle. And I can't say I am mad about it.
I am so jealous of all the literary events you can attend in NYC!!! BUT- this Sunday I am going to a writing workshop with Roxane Gay at our public library and I am so excited!
Yes reading is ALWAYS taking me out of life. But most things bore me, which is unfortunate. My favorite experiences usually include deep discussions or activities that require brain power, so it's hard for me to just exist. I've never been one of those people who can just "hang". Learning to create balance is a never ending process for me.
I have never admitted this out loud but - I didn't love Just Kids. I found her a bit insufferable. I don't know if that comes from a place of resentment or lack of... something, but I just kept thinking, is suffering for art really that noble? Who knows.
Thank you for being honest! This is a safe space! 😂😂
I felt similarly annoyed early on in the book - why not get a job so you don't have to split your sandwiches?! But I do believe that being an artist is a serious thing and it requires serious dedication and ... devotion. As I was reading it, I was thinking about some of the creative projects I got to work on in my twenties .... and realized that I abandoned them in order to make money and I now wonder if getting comfortable killed my hunger to create... As you said, who knows.
I didn’t like Just Kids either 🙊 Apparently Patti Smith was Keith McNally’s worst customer he ever had in their youth. He writes about it in his upcoming memoir.
“I clearly remember putting down my book so I could go and apply some red lipstick. Somehow it felt essential to my reading experience at the time and I must say – reading this new collection felt the same. His work continues to provoke in me this desire to become more vivid, more flamboyant, to mark myself as someone who is PRESENT.”
Exactly how I feel about Dimitrov’s poetry— the recent pubs he’s had are especially electrifying. And thank you for the lipstick rec!
My April TBR list was full of articles relating to the project I had at hand
I don’t feel my reading life is taking me out of life, rather I feel closer to life, more intentional at life, and celebrate little daily wins. Shifting my gaze from the things that hurt, but being aware tho!
"Just Kids is ultimately a love letter—to a person, a place, and a time. It’s a memoir of creative becoming that feels devotional in its honesty, suffused with grace and grief." Thank you for reminding how wonderful this book was. My reading month started off with some disappointments, but then I read James by Percival Everett and feel back on track.
The Eye of the Master: A Social History of AI - Mario Pasquinelli
Name - Constance Debre
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir - Vivian Gornick
The Best American Essays 2024 - Various
The Book of Disappearance - Ibstisan Azem
Being & Time - Martin Heidegger
Being & Time took me 15 years from the first time I read the introduction in the R&M translation. I read the Stambaugh translation the last two attempts and this time I got it done.
I've now read all three Halle Butler novels, and Jillian, her first, is my favorite. It paired nicely with Eurotrash which was my favorite novel this month. Both books center on two main characters who think they are very different but are actually quite a like and both have a range of cyclical comedy from poop jokes to jokes about changing from the first person to free indirect.
Fierce Attachments & BAE 2024 were the most influential on my own writing.
Out of the mouths of babes... Your daughter is very perceptive! Nurture that! My mother was a reader and made me a reader, she read every night, but before bed... She still managed a novel every few days... Of course, she wasn't taking time to write reviews... Stay well Petya...
Thank you, Matthew! I know she is mine but she IS very perceptive and I do believe that she is my best teacher. So trying not to be defensive and listen, while also doing what I need to do in order to feel whole. 🥰
From your April reads, I’ve only read Just Kids. While I really loved Patti Smith’s writing (I underlined so many quotes), I couldn’t give it a full 5 stars because I didn’t live in the New York that she was talking about and I couldn’t relate to the things going on in the book. I think this is similar to the way you used about your review in The Calculation of Volume. Or ish.
I read Assembly when I was working in financial services in London and loved it. It got into a really sticky, murky space of that world. I just finished The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a novel in letters, which I thought was quite brilliant and moving.
April reads:
1. Mongrel by Hanako Footman
2. Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda
3. Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
4. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
5. Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić
6. Rosewater by Liv Little
7. Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment by Laura Delano
I’m trying to read the International Booker prize Long List. I’ve also been in my death memoir era and Didion keeps coming up, so I’m interested in this latest rendition of her work.
Oooh! You had an amazing reading month, too!
The Year of Magical Thinking was my first Didion I ever read and still my favorite . It opens with her husband’s death from a heart attack and it’s a contemplation on their life together and their interdependence as partners and collaborators. It’s really good.
I haven’t read The Year of Magical Thinking, bury I’m thinking to do a deep dive into Didion in the second half of the year.
Ooh what are your thoughts on Mongrel? It was one of my favourite books last year.
I know the question was not for me but Mongrel sounds amazing!
I loved the way it came together in the end and how the sisters navigated the their relationship. However, the early Mei and Yuki sections were hard for me because they felt like tropes — I would have loved a deeper interrogation of their characters.
I read Eurotrash and The Book of Disappearance. Eurotrash was really good. I see you got the others :)
Yummy list. I’ve been reading the Didion excerpt in the New Yorker and I’d say it’s on my list.
So much DISCOURSE about this book. I feel like it’s only for the fans… but (and?) I have enjoyed it tremendously - both as an unfiltered view into how Didion processes the daily drama of her life but also as a residual meditation on creative and romantic partnership, parenting an only child, and realizing that we all essentially deal with the same shit for all of our lives…. Oh, you thought you resolved that 45 years ago…. Think again.
Lovely knowing your recent reads, especially your thoughts on Dear John. I have read abysmally little of her work, and have been wondering if I should read the others before coming to this.
I don't think think you need to read A LOT of Didion in order to make sense of Notes to John but you need at least The Year of Magical Thinking or Blue Nights. The Year of Magical Thinking is my favorite of her books (and I really don't care at all for her novels). The two memoirs are the first two books I read by her and turned me into a massive fan. Than last fall I did a Joan Didion reading project -- which made me face reality a little bit haha ... so now I have great respect for her but I know she is only human.
Bless Rumi and her profound observation - one that would hurt me too! I am interested to see/hear how reading less goes for you over the summer as someone who is also so addicted to reading. It is HARD to curb the thing you love but perhaps it'll make you realise even more why you love it in the first place...? I was very intrigued by Pathemata and then read that you suggest I do not start my Nelson journey there. I feel compelled to listen to you - where should I start? I feel like I have been avoiding Nelson for a while because all her work feels so different I can't quite work out where to go.
I know... out of the mouth of babes... Reading is such a gift when you are feeling alone and isolated, but it can also be isolatING. We do a lot of reading as a family - library trips, bookstore visits and quiet time together ... everybody reading their book in the same room. But it is MY favorite thing to do in the world and SHE needs more of me and more of life at this stage.
The other painful truth is that reading and writing for Substack has become such a vital part of my life and my identity -- but it is A LOT OF WORK -- and I need to make some choices because I don't believe it's sustainable for me with the current configuration of my life (FT job, family, etc).
Re: Maggie Nelson - I would read The Argonauts first because it's a great representation of "autotheory" -- her particular brand of weaving personal writing and memoir with theory and philosophy. The Argonauts follows a more straight-forward narrative structure than some of her other work, so even if you don't love the formal experimentation... you would still get a good sense for her style. And then I would read Bluets which is tiny and poetic.
I have definitely had seasons of my life where reading is taking me away from the world rather than into it. The comment from your daughter is exactly the type of feedback that should be honored and investigated. Some strategies I have used:
- Be a little less precious about "my time". I'm the type of reader who feels heavily the weight of mortality, wanting to make the most use of the limited number of books I will get to read in my life. Reminding myself that watching a "dumb movie", but doing it with someone I love, is also valuable.
- Change what I read. Something like short stories or essays, that's easier to put down or has natural breaks, can help feed the urge without such an intense amount of immersion.
- Find ways to read together. My family aren't big readers, but I might read a nonfiction book about a topic that interests my husband, so I can tell him about it, even if it's not something that I would "normally" read.
- Change reading routine. I love reading early on weekend mornings, when I'm the only one awake. I get to feed my desire without affecting my time with others.
- Read something that inspires you to life. For me, this is religious texts, but it could be anything that makes you want to go be alive!
Best of luck! I read less than usual in April because the nice weather made me want to be outside and doing things instead of having my head in a book, but I still got through some absolute bangers.
Reading is one of my favorite things to do in life, but it can also distract me from living it and being present. I balance this with designated date nights and I try to make it to a few literary events a month in the city. With a whole house to care for, Joe and Hugo, and my own personal life outside of them (friends, hobbies outside of reading and writing, etc.), the days of finishing more than 2-3 books a week are over, and I'm okay with that because my life is so rich in other ways.
Reading an exorbitant amount of books is another form of disassociation/avoidance for some. (And that's okay! No judgment to people who do that--I've done it in the past when times were tough) I love reading stories, but I also want to live out my own with the people I love in real time in real life. Back in the day, having your nose in a book was the modern-day version of your nose in a phone. Remembering this keeps things in perspective when I get too reclusive with my reading habits.
There is a season for everything. I am about to enter my splash pad + pool hang season as the school year draws to an end for Rumi and Kyle. And I can't say I am mad about it.
I am so jealous of all the literary events you can attend in NYC!!! BUT- this Sunday I am going to a writing workshop with Roxane Gay at our public library and I am so excited!
Indeed! One of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself is to learn to love the current season I’m in instead of looking forward to the next one.
Writing workshop with Roxane Gay at the public library?! 😍😍😍 You’re in great hands over there!! Have so much fun!
Yes reading is ALWAYS taking me out of life. But most things bore me, which is unfortunate. My favorite experiences usually include deep discussions or activities that require brain power, so it's hard for me to just exist. I've never been one of those people who can just "hang". Learning to create balance is a never ending process for me.
I have never admitted this out loud but - I didn't love Just Kids. I found her a bit insufferable. I don't know if that comes from a place of resentment or lack of... something, but I just kept thinking, is suffering for art really that noble? Who knows.
Thank you for being honest! This is a safe space! 😂😂
I felt similarly annoyed early on in the book - why not get a job so you don't have to split your sandwiches?! But I do believe that being an artist is a serious thing and it requires serious dedication and ... devotion. As I was reading it, I was thinking about some of the creative projects I got to work on in my twenties .... and realized that I abandoned them in order to make money and I now wonder if getting comfortable killed my hunger to create... As you said, who knows.
I didn’t like Just Kids either 🙊 Apparently Patti Smith was Keith McNally’s worst customer he ever had in their youth. He writes about it in his upcoming memoir.
“I clearly remember putting down my book so I could go and apply some red lipstick. Somehow it felt essential to my reading experience at the time and I must say – reading this new collection felt the same. His work continues to provoke in me this desire to become more vivid, more flamboyant, to mark myself as someone who is PRESENT.”
Exactly how I feel about Dimitrov’s poetry— the recent pubs he’s had are especially electrifying. And thank you for the lipstick rec!
OMG. Thank you for validating this feeling for me. I am such a fan and I truly hope I get to see him read in person at some point!
My April TBR list was full of articles relating to the project I had at hand
I don’t feel my reading life is taking me out of life, rather I feel closer to life, more intentional at life, and celebrate little daily wins. Shifting my gaze from the things that hurt, but being aware tho!
"Just Kids is ultimately a love letter—to a person, a place, and a time. It’s a memoir of creative becoming that feels devotional in its honesty, suffused with grace and grief." Thank you for reminding how wonderful this book was. My reading month started off with some disappointments, but then I read James by Percival Everett and feel back on track.
These were my April reads:
Eurotrash - Christian Kracht
Jillian - Halle Butler
The Eye of the Master: A Social History of AI - Mario Pasquinelli
Name - Constance Debre
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir - Vivian Gornick
The Best American Essays 2024 - Various
The Book of Disappearance - Ibstisan Azem
Being & Time - Martin Heidegger
Being & Time took me 15 years from the first time I read the introduction in the R&M translation. I read the Stambaugh translation the last two attempts and this time I got it done.
I've now read all three Halle Butler novels, and Jillian, her first, is my favorite. It paired nicely with Eurotrash which was my favorite novel this month. Both books center on two main characters who think they are very different but are actually quite a like and both have a range of cyclical comedy from poop jokes to jokes about changing from the first person to free indirect.
Fierce Attachments & BAE 2024 were the most influential on my own writing.
Out of the mouths of babes... Your daughter is very perceptive! Nurture that! My mother was a reader and made me a reader, she read every night, but before bed... She still managed a novel every few days... Of course, she wasn't taking time to write reviews... Stay well Petya...
Thank you, Matthew! I know she is mine but she IS very perceptive and I do believe that she is my best teacher. So trying not to be defensive and listen, while also doing what I need to do in order to feel whole. 🥰
Oooh love Alex Dimitrov‘a work and so relate to the feelings it evokes!
You have gotten me so interested in reading some Deborah Levy! Where would you suggest starting?
Swimming Home was my favorite!!!
From your April reads, I’ve only read Just Kids. While I really loved Patti Smith’s writing (I underlined so many quotes), I couldn’t give it a full 5 stars because I didn’t live in the New York that she was talking about and I couldn’t relate to the things going on in the book. I think this is similar to the way you used about your review in The Calculation of Volume. Or ish.
I read Assembly when I was working in financial services in London and loved it. It got into a really sticky, murky space of that world. I just finished The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a novel in letters, which I thought was quite brilliant and moving.