Re-Reading: a special occasion

I very rarely re-read books. There is so much out there, infinitely much out there to read, that how can I spend the precious little time I have on this earth reading something I already read? I'll tell you how: when it's such an indescribably good read that I haven't stopped thinking about it in …

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Jackson is the queen of subtly blurring reality and imagination into a single, unnerving gradient. This story follows Natalie, a 17 year old just starting college, and her slow descent into solipsism and possible madness. The more you read, the less sure you become of what has really happened, and what has been dreamed up …

Oops I read a bunch of books and didn’t blog about them again

Wow, it's been a while! Here are some more books I read and some thoughts on them to close out the year Agamemnon's Daughter by Ismail Kadare I blazed through this one in two sittings, extremely engaging and also strange and upsetting. I picked this originally because I decided I wanted to read books from …

Bye Bye 20 20

Is it over? It's really almost over! A year that has been a symbol of awful for so many people. Obviously switching a number at an arbitrary time won't end any of the terrible things so many people are going through, but it's a useful thing to our human minds to imagine that it will …

The poetry of Jorge Luis Borges

I've read his many stories off and on throughout my life, but never his poetry until this year. From reading his memorable stories, certain words and ideas have come to carry a lot of 'Borgesness' with them: Labyrinth, hexameter, tigers, algebra, chess, libraries, mirrors, coins--and this carries through to his poetry as well. This could …