Title brought to you by one of my favorite hip-hop songs of all time.
Much has happened since the last post: books have been read, trips have been travelled, I watched the entirety of Game of Thrones for the first time and got covid (and got better). Now Spooky Season is upon us.
I like to let broader themes guide my reading from time to time—reading poetry during April, Black authors in February, that sort of thing—since it pushes me to try genres and writers I might otherwise never look for. So October is time to read scary books. I’ve narrowed down a shortlist of six choices, though I’d be lucky to finish half of them in a single month. I’m starting with This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno, and after that I’ll see what strikes me in the moment. So far, This Thing Between Us is really good.
For better, more authoritative Halloween reading recommendations, check out this list by Alex Zawacki, an expert on medieval stuff and a PhD candidate on ghosts and horror.
Reads from July-September
Radical Is Now Rational by Hamilton Nolan, In These Times
The Never-Ending War on the Woke by Alex Pareene, The Forum
The Grammar of Exile by Will Boast, Virginia Quarterly Review
The Door Opened by Gangnam Style by Colin Marshall, The New Yorker
The Money Is In All The Wrong Places by Kelsey McKinney, Defector
What Translators Mean When We Talk about Reading by Anton Hur, Catapult
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Books from July-September
When I Sing Mountains Dance by Irene Solà, translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
A novel that feels like interconnected short stories, since each chapter tells the story of a Catalonian mountainside and what happens around it. Chapters unfold from the perspective of an incoming storm, ghosts of fallen soldiers, a hive mind of mushrooms, and a number of different family members over the course of a few generations. It’s playfully and beautifully written, weaving national history through family drama and natural wonder.
Stoner by John Williams
Considered a quiet masterpiece of post-war American letters, I had always been a little intimidated to crack open Stoner. It’s reputed to be not only a Great novel, but a perfect one. I’m not sure if such a thing exists, but I wouldn’t argue with someone making that argument about Stoner. It follows the unremarkable life of William Stoner (sorry, nothing marijuana-related involved), who grew up in a rural part of Missouri and whose life changes when he attends university and discovers a passion for literature. He becomes a professor, gets married, has a daughter and dies, and in between all of that, an entire human life takes place. It’s precise and poignant, heartbreaking and hopeful. A genuine work of excellence.
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Have you ever felt like reading a book while also scrolling endlessly through Twitter? Look no further. Lockwood achieves the feeling of being on social media by capturing its language and humor and sense of self-referential in-jokes, but she doesn’t leave you behind or feeling out of the loop. And often enough, Lockwood hits you with a stinger — a potent observation of human connection, a moving in-real-life situation brewing in the narrator’s family, a realization that feels disturbingly accurate (especially for those of us who are Very Online). It’s a brisk novel that is smart, funny, a little chaotic and always surprising.
The Territories: Wrestling Stories Vol. 1 collection
A collection of short stories by various writers about professional wrestling during the 80s. Young stars on the rise, old ones fading away against their will; egos swelling and bodies breaking; the business of backstabbing and opportunism; the seedy can’t-trust-anyone atmosphere of the industry; a young religious boy trying to process the thrill of wrestling with the demonic characters he sees in the ring. It’s a great book, a bunch of good writers having fun with a subject matter they know and love.
Shaky Town by Lou Mathews
A novel of short stories where the main character is ultimately the city of Los Angeles. Matthews is a former mechanic and street racer (among various other jobs) who knows LA as intimately as anyone, and this is a love letter to its enormity and strangeness, the people he knows and observes, and the stories drifting through its vast city limits. The book, like the city, can be beautiful and it can be heartbreaking (sometimes both at once), but it is always entertaining and enlightening for those willing to step into it.
Writing from July-September
For Civil Beat I wrote about what it means to be hopeful at a time when politics feels so broken and ineffective; a local boxing club that’s been helping troubled kids for nearly 100 years; a high school in California where students graduate with an associates degree, work experience in the area’s predominant industries, money and job offers; and why telling tourists not to come to Hawaii won’t have the effect that people want it to have.