Tracey Thorn’s discography is a laudable one: the groups Everything But the Girl and Marine Girls, collaborations with Massive Attack, and a group of acclaimed solo albums. Her memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen, delivered a lot of what I was expecting: there’s plenty of detail about Thorn’s creative process, and how it evolved through the years; there’s also plenty about her own personal aesthetics, and how they developed over time.
I’ve had Tiphanie Yanique’s memorably-titled How to Escape from a Leper Colony on my to-read shelf for a while now. I’ve heard good things about Land of Love and Drowning, the novel she has due out later this year, and figured that it might be the right time to check out the collection in question. Spoiler alert: it totally was. Secondary spoiler: season two of #tobyreads is all about me building a time machine to find my younger self and convincing […]
This week’s theme seems to be chapbooks: each of the works here is an essay contained between two covers; each is decidedly personal, yet resonant on a larger scale, whether economic or cultural. Each is also by an author whose work I’d already been familiar with, and provides a concise take on their areas of expertise.
I’ve always had a fondness for narratives in which a character gradually comes to understand a culture that’s initially alien to them. This might stem from coming to reading via science fiction and fantasy, where such a thing can be handled literally, but I’m happy to see these wherever they may come: realistic or fantastic, literal or metaphorical. The title of Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria tells you, on one level, what to expect: there’s a place called Olondria, and the […]
Winning isn’t everything: it’s anything. Winning is whatever you want it to be, and that’s what makes it so good. You want it to be one of those post-game gumball-eyed ice cream bars with the gauzy melting heads shaped like the cartoon turtles? Be my guest. It won’t be me suckling Michelangelo’s ugly mug. My night’s only trophies will be enjoyed much later tonight, at the quarry, in my car: the remainder of a day-old roach and some graph paper […]
Earlier in the month, I came across Jo Walton’s glowing review of Angelica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial. (The English translation is by Ursula K. Le Guin.) Then I read Sofia Samatar’s write-up of the same book, and realized that I should probably give it a proper read, as it had been glaring at me from my to-read shelf for a while. And, sure enough, I found it to be terrific. Largely organized as a storyteller recounting the long history of an empire, […]
One of the best literary works I’ve encountered this year is Pity the Animal, the new chapbook from Chelsea Hodson. I don’t want to say too much about it: much of its power comes from the way it juxtaposes seemingly unrelated elements: a retrospective of Marina Abramović’s art, scenes from Hodson’s life, economic musings, and considerations of adventure. The way these eventually coalesce is immeasurably powerful; the accumulated effect is devastating, and hits harder than many works ten times its length. I checked […]
Writing this column poses something of a conundrum, as nearly all of the reading I’ve done this week has been for upcoming freelance assignments. So expect to see more of a focus on shorter works this time out: stories and essays I’ve encountered in publications in print and online. Plus one novel about attraction, a declining Iowa town, and giant bugs.