do you really need to read all the books you buy? ✦ plus reviews of 2 excellent debut novels ✦ an Italian novella about rogue AI ✦ and an attempt to "read" "theory"
I found my way to Mating through Becca Rothfeld's essay on the book in her All Things are Too Small collection, where she really focuses on the love/conversation idea. Really enjoyed mating, and I suspect in part because I was primed to think about the relationship in those terms!
Last year, my husband built me a home library for my birthday :)
So yes, I completely understand the feeling about seeing all the books you haven't read yet, but want to keep buying new ones to fill up those shelves.
I very much admire your commitment to reading all the unread books around your house! I went through and compiled list of mine a few months back and then promptly ignored it! But I have been meaning to read How Fiction Works for a while so this was a good reminder. I always look forward to these.
I love Nicolas Bourriaud! Relational Aesthetics is one of the first books I recommend to students in my contemporary art history class at the Sorbonne!
I'm glad you're reading all these books...so I don't have to? Though there are at least three I might hunt down later. And I will get Rave as a gift for my younger son. Though the odds are low that he'll actually read it. I still read more than I think is good for me but after a huge culling I boxed up the remaining books and stuck them in the cupboard in the back of my office closet—technically, keeping the books because my older son thinks I should, however unclear his motivation. Now I try to get ahold of what I want to read from the library. Bless the inter-library loan and the abolishment, where I live, of late fees!. Thus I too have tons of tsudoko (did I get that word right? now that I'm commenting I can't see the essay, it's just stored out in the world, which has all the space in the...yeah.
I'm also glad you mentioned Hanif Abdurraqib because I've been trying to remember his name for two weeks since I want to re-visit his poetry and couldn't think of any search terms that worked. A little gift from the universe.
The bit you shared of Bourriaud's glossary — aesthetics as a humans-only thing? really? as if whales don't speak with syntax and elephants mourn their dead and bees dance? bower birds anyone? and Baudrillard, well, I'm glad I can skip all that. I know there are French writers I'd love, have loved. Different categories, perhaps. Oh, Proust!
I'm glad I don't really read novels anymore. I read a LOT of them though (some long ones, too, of 3 or 7 volumes) so maybe I just wore out that faculty? Unlike you, I'm currently into the fewer, less cohesive words on a page thing, poems. Easier to memorize, for one thing.
PS I like your slipping the Berkeley Bowl into one of your reviews, the cloud computing pastoral I think but maybe it was elsewhere. I got the reference! Feeling like a local.
PPS I totally enjoyed reading your reviews and am kind of in awe.
Relieved to report only one "increasingly" in my history, a reference to Groucho Marx's age gap girlfriend/caretaker/svengali becoming "increasingly unhinged,"lol.
I think Power Broker is one of the best books I've read this year, now that it's finally available in e-book form (I took out a library loan and put my Kindle in airplane mode for 3 MONTHS to finish it).
I also went back and finished Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series (I think the first 3 came out within 2 years and then 4 years for the final book?), quite a fantastic science fiction series. The best kind of scifi isn't just pulp, it poses real questions to the reader, and this certainly delivered throughout but especially the climax!
Interestingly enough, Blindsight by Peter Watts also scratched that same philosophical scifi itch! Did not expect that from a book about a ship sent out to make first contact with aliens while captained by a vampire, lmao.
Mood Machine by Liz Pelly shouldn't be read if you are an active paying Spotify user, as it's a fantastic dive into why you *shouldn't* be using Spotify.
Great insights! What was the story about a pastoral future after the collapse of cloud computing? Thanks so much :)
I found my way to Mating through Becca Rothfeld's essay on the book in her All Things are Too Small collection, where she really focuses on the love/conversation idea. Really enjoyed mating, and I suspect in part because I was primed to think about the relationship in those terms!
The only newsletter that I consistently read from stem to stern. I appreciate your writing so much!
Last year, my husband built me a home library for my birthday :)
So yes, I completely understand the feeling about seeing all the books you haven't read yet, but want to keep buying new ones to fill up those shelves.
Thank you for such relatable musings!
I very much admire your commitment to reading all the unread books around your house! I went through and compiled list of mine a few months back and then promptly ignored it! But I have been meaning to read How Fiction Works for a while so this was a good reminder. I always look forward to these.
I love Nicolas Bourriaud! Relational Aesthetics is one of the first books I recommend to students in my contemporary art history class at the Sorbonne!
Always glad to see more praise for Loved & Missed.
Celine's next read...Middlemarch? :') :')
I'm glad you're reading all these books...so I don't have to? Though there are at least three I might hunt down later. And I will get Rave as a gift for my younger son. Though the odds are low that he'll actually read it. I still read more than I think is good for me but after a huge culling I boxed up the remaining books and stuck them in the cupboard in the back of my office closet—technically, keeping the books because my older son thinks I should, however unclear his motivation. Now I try to get ahold of what I want to read from the library. Bless the inter-library loan and the abolishment, where I live, of late fees!. Thus I too have tons of tsudoko (did I get that word right? now that I'm commenting I can't see the essay, it's just stored out in the world, which has all the space in the...yeah.
I'm also glad you mentioned Hanif Abdurraqib because I've been trying to remember his name for two weeks since I want to re-visit his poetry and couldn't think of any search terms that worked. A little gift from the universe.
The bit you shared of Bourriaud's glossary — aesthetics as a humans-only thing? really? as if whales don't speak with syntax and elephants mourn their dead and bees dance? bower birds anyone? and Baudrillard, well, I'm glad I can skip all that. I know there are French writers I'd love, have loved. Different categories, perhaps. Oh, Proust!
I'm glad I don't really read novels anymore. I read a LOT of them though (some long ones, too, of 3 or 7 volumes) so maybe I just wore out that faculty? Unlike you, I'm currently into the fewer, less cohesive words on a page thing, poems. Easier to memorize, for one thing.
PS I like your slipping the Berkeley Bowl into one of your reviews, the cloud computing pastoral I think but maybe it was elsewhere. I got the reference! Feeling like a local.
PPS I totally enjoyed reading your reviews and am kind of in awe.
Added a number of these to my to-read list, thank you !
Relieved to report only one "increasingly" in my history, a reference to Groucho Marx's age gap girlfriend/caretaker/svengali becoming "increasingly unhinged,"lol.
Janet Malcolm wrote a great essay on Sally Mann.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/02/03/the-family-of-mann/
I think Power Broker is one of the best books I've read this year, now that it's finally available in e-book form (I took out a library loan and put my Kindle in airplane mode for 3 MONTHS to finish it).
I also went back and finished Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series (I think the first 3 came out within 2 years and then 4 years for the final book?), quite a fantastic science fiction series. The best kind of scifi isn't just pulp, it poses real questions to the reader, and this certainly delivered throughout but especially the climax!
Interestingly enough, Blindsight by Peter Watts also scratched that same philosophical scifi itch! Did not expect that from a book about a ship sent out to make first contact with aliens while captained by a vampire, lmao.
Mood Machine by Liz Pelly shouldn't be read if you are an active paying Spotify user, as it's a fantastic dive into why you *shouldn't* be using Spotify.
Thanks for the reviews. I just bought Happiness and Love.