Sometime in the past year, I started thinking of myself as a year older than I actually am. Whereas before — say, at the age of 35 — I’d end up hesitating, considering 34, and then realizing that, no, I needed to go up a year, I now keep wanting to refer to myself as 37, whereas I’ve still got a few months to go until that birthday comes around. It’s a minor thing, sure, but it’s getting under my […]
#tobyreads: Mixing Pop and Politics? We Can Do That.
I’d be surprised if this week’s events haven’t made you think about politics in at least some capacity: there’s been plenty to mull over and plenty to debate; events to inspire and events to infuriate. And so it’s not too surprising that much of my recent reading has also involved questions of political affiliation, radicalism and compromise, and issues that steadily avoid an easy resolution.
#tobyreads: Recommended Reading Leads to Work from Kavan, Calvino, and Lynch
This week, we’re looking at books that have come highly recommended — which isn’t to say that this trio doesn’t turn out to have much in common. In fact, they do, despite being in disparate forms (one collection, one novel, one memoir-slash-essay collection.) All of these books got me thinking about big issues — life, death, how we connect to those around us — you know, the kinds of topics that make for deeply upbeat conversations, and don’t at all […]
#tobyreads: Anatomies of Modern Conflict: J.M. Ledgard, Masha Hamilton, and Aleksander Hemon on War and its Effects
Books of conflict, of war, of nations uprooted and the aftermath of that uprooting. That’s what was on my mind with this week’s three selections: two novels with decidedly contemporary settings, and one collection of essays wherein the memory of war, and of geographic displacement, is never far below the surface. It’s a weighty selection of subjects, but one to which all three of these do justice.
#tobyreads: Esoteric Classics and Political Ruminations — Challenging Work From Bioy Casares to Fitzgerald
A lot of what I’ve read this week has been for pieces to run here or elsewhere, or books that won’t be out for a while. So you’re getting something of a mixed bag: a couple of works by renowned writers; one collection of documents pertaining to a particularly current concern; and one more esoteric piece of prose.
#tobyreads: Created Creators: Sarah Hall, Ali Smith, and A.G. Porta on Artists’ Lives and Works
And so once again, we return to one of my preferred subjects for fiction: the making of art. Three of the four central characters in Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man are artists; the two focal characters of A.G. Porta’s The No World Concerto are writers; and Ali Smith’s Artful is constructed around a series of lectures given on the subjects of art and aesthetics. None of these are traditionally structured, and that’s one of the pleasures of reading them: how […]
#tobyreads: A Trio of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists — Books by Helen Oyeyemi, Sarah Hall, & Ned Beauman
Mortifyingly, I haven’t actually read the current edition of Granta. I have a copy of it in my living room; I’ve thumbed through it a little bit: checked out some of the portraits; noted that Stephen Hall’s contribution seems to involve an interesting layout. But still: haven’t gotten to it yet. But that didn’t stop me from reading novels by three of the writers featured in said issue.
#tobyreads: Misreading “Flan” and Reading Collections
This week? Collections. Mostly, at least. Two short story collections, one novel that could easily be taken for a collection, and some poetry. I should probably also mention that I’ve recently finished A. Igoni Barrett’s Love Is Power, or Something Like That for a review I’m working on, and it’s fantastic — one of the best books I’ve read in a while, and a terrifically-constructed book.