personal canon

the occasional art report

the pros and cons of nostalgia, Wolfgang Tillmans, Korean ceramics, ideal translations, and the best show of Frieze London

Nov 5 • 

Celine Nguyen

126

17

8

October 2025

how to speak to a computer

against chat interfaces ✦ a brief history of artificial intelligence ✦ and the (worthwhile) problem of other minds

Oct 20 • 

Celine Nguyen

243

36

45

everything i read in september 2025

novels & nonfiction about AI poetry, lost love, corporate anthropologists, and more ✦

Oct 5 • 

Celine Nguyen

217

35

10

September 2025

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

277

23

9

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

361

49

66

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

196

25

23

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

294

26

15

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

1,537

65

98

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

1,995

152

352

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

171

39

25

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

22

February 2025

everything i read in january 2025

4 books on religion, health, work, art ✦

Feb 8 • 

Celine Nguyen

242

17

11