personal canon

everything i read in july & august 2025

15 books on love, communism, AIDS activism, and sleeping your way to the top

Sep 3 • 

Celine Nguyen

256

23

August 2025

how to expand the market for literature (and literary criticism)

the personal and social function of criticism ✦ and why the humanities are not dead, thank you very much

Aug 27 • 

Celine Nguyen

342

49

July 2025

exercises in style: bill beckley's "cake story"

short fiction and photography inspired by 1970s conceptual art ✦ and how to get started with flash fiction!

Jul 25 • 

Celine Nguyen

189

25

everything i read in june 2025

5 books about design, grief, spirituality and history ✦ and recent films from China, Taiwan and Vietnam

Jul 2 • 

Celine Nguyen

293

26

June 2025

annie ernaux fixed my disintegrating attention span

the (almost) definitive ranking of Ernaux's books ✦ everything I read in March, April, and May 2025

Jun 22 • 

Celine Nguyen

1,461

64

May 2025

no one told me about proust

on poptimism and literary snobs ✦ and why taste is cultivated through love, not education

May 31 • 

Celine Nguyen

1,909

151

in defense of san francisco's art scene

it's actually very easy to solve alienation, anomie, and the loneliness epidemic…just fund the arts more (and go to events more) ✦

May 13 • 

Celine Nguyen

169

39

March 2025

everything i read in february 2025

3 novels and 2 films on love, despair, and loss ✦ and how to read Hannah Arendt for the first time

Mar 11 • 

Celine Nguyen

309

34

February 2025

everything i read in january 2025

4 books on religion, health, work, art ✦

Feb 8 • 

Celine Nguyen

241

17

January 2025

how to begin

on copying, technique and taste ✦ plus 6 close readings of great essay intros

Jan 26 • 

Celine Nguyen

3,717

62

December 2024

best books of 2024

including novels, nonfiction, short stories and essays ✦✧

Dec 30, 2024 • 

Celine Nguyen

546

41

in praise of writing on the internet

one year, 34 posts, and 8,000 subscribers later ✦✧

Dec 9, 2024 • 

Celine Nguyen

979

109