(I’m posting this preemptively and updating it as I go.)
Books
In April, May, and June I read 6* books.
The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwood
“So I’m finally going mad,” she thought, “like everybody else. What a nuisance. Though I suppose it will be a change.”
— The Edible Woman, pp. 134
The Edible Woman is fast-paced, witty, and weird.
“I thought you were the capable type.”
“I am,” she said unhappily. “I was. I don’t know.” She didn’t want to discuss it.
“Some would say of course that it’s all in your mind.”
“I know that,” she said, impatient: she wasn’t a total idiot yet. “But how do I get it out?”
“It ought to be obvious,” Duncan’s voice said, “that I’m the last person to ask.”
— The Edible Woman, pp. 289-290
Margaret Atwood is cemented as my favorite author of all time. She can effortlessly throw down one of the best surrealist satires of all time, a 500 page meticulous historical mystery, or a sci-fi epic.
— 5/5 —
Lady Oracle, by Margaret Atwood
What was the use of being Princess-for-a-day if you still felt like a toad?
— Lady Oracle, pp. 238
Another Atwood book about a sad sack contemplating her sad life, full of miserable, pathetic, quirky characters. I absolutely loved it. It’s not as virtuosic as the The Blind Assassin, and not as bitingly funny as The Edible Woman, but it’s close on both fronts.
— 5/5 —
Bodily Harm, by Margaret Atwood
The first thing he said to me was You look like your mother. And that was the end of him.
— Bodily Harm, pp. 102
Bodily Harm is funny, depressing, relatable, and surprisingly disturbing. While still mopey, Rennie has a bit more fire and bite to her than Iris, Marian, and Joan, which was a nice change of pace.
She doesn’t have much time left, for anything. But neither does anyone else. She’s paying attention, that’s all.
— Bodily Harm, pp. 291
The ending was just as perfect as I’ve come to expect. One more masterpiece for the pile.
— 4/5 —
Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood
At the midway pond the heron was still there, hanging in the hot sunlight like something in a butcher’s window, desecrated, unredeemed. It smelled worse. Around its head the flies vibrated, laying their eggs. The king who learned to speak with animals, in the story he ate a magic leaf and they revealed a treasure, a conspiracy, they saved his life; what would they really say? Accusation, lament, an outcry of rage; but they had no spokesman.
I felt a sickening complicity, sticky as glue, blood on my hands, as though I had been there and watched without saying No or doing anything to stop it; one of the silent guarded faces in the crowd. The trouble some people have with being German, I thought, I have being human. In a way it was stupid to be more disturbed by a dead bird than by the those other things, the wars and riots and the massacres in the newspapers. But for the wars and riots there was always an explanation, people wrote books about them saying why they happened: the death of the heron was causeless, undiluted.
— Surfacing, pp. 150
Many people hate this book, for some reason—it’s one of her lowest rated novels—but it might be the best thing that she’s ever written. Surreal, dense, elliptical, brilliant.
— 5/5 —
Thorn in My Side, by C. J. Skuse
Even multiple murderers like day trips.
Somehow, Skuse’s series is still going strong; I might not even call this one a guilty pleasure! Sweetpea #4 is by far the most consistent entry since book #1, and features some of the best side characters of the series. I’m not a major fan of Raphael, but the rest of his family—and their reactions to the crazy nightmare that is Rhiannon—were a fantastic change of pace.
— 3/5 —
Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, by Hannah Dierdorff
“i” isn’t quite sure if this is a poem but “i” has worried too much about the edges between binaries (heaven / hell) (human / nature) (prose / poetry) to now worry about belonging to a single category
— The Lyric “I” Goes Shopping at Trader Joe’s, from Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, pp. 71
I’ve never read a book of poetry before this one, mostly, it seems, due to misunderstanding what a book of poetry is. In film there is no hard distinction between an art film relying mainly on visual language, a handheld indie relying more on performances, a big budget blockbuster, or anything in between; they are all just called movies. Therefore anyone interested in movies (see me) will get recommendations for works from Superman (2025), to Frances Ha (2012), to Daisies (1966), and watch all three in a cinema (or, most likely, in a web browser) without a second thought. Yet in writing, poetry is somehow separate, at least in the eyes of the layperson. (Again, see me, but I don’t think this distinction is only in the eyes of a consumer, for even MFA programs tend to separate poetry from, uh, the rest? Prose? Regular writing?)
It seems to me that this distinction does a lot of harm to the potential popularity of poetry. Prior to this I’d thought, Why would I want to read a book of poetry? But there is no hard line separating poetry and prose, just as there is no hard line between art film and blockbuster. Earlier this year I read two books by Alan Warner: These Demented Lands and The Sopranos. While I loved their narrative and dialogue, what I found most interesting and inspirational was their strange (to me) use of language and formatting. The Sopranos opened with a couple jokes without punchlines, instead their humor was explained by small illustrations or figures elsewhere on the page. Each also used strange punctuation, phonetic language (beyond what I’ve seen in other Scots writing), and would switch form between narration, written letter, scrap of historical document, even film script in one instance. Deciphering the meaning behind each of these choices and omissions was a fantastic experience, one I did not immediately connect to poetry, which sat in my mind to refer only to writing structured in verse.
In fact, Warner’s work inspired me so much that I began writing my own material; mostly short, somewhere between memoir and fiction. I found it difficult to categorize the work I liked to read and write in the language of modern reading communities, e.g. “BookTube,” beyond dumping it under the umbrellas of Literary Fiction and Creative Nonfiction. From there, I began reading literary journals, which, thankfully, often do not make such a hard and fast distinction between poetry and prose, memoir and fiction.
I’ve read more poetry this year than I have my entire life, and, eventually, I read the issue of Permafrost that contained As the West Coast Burns, by Hannah Dierdorff. The piece was compelling and personal; it reminded me of Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood, with its mix of anger, pain, sadness over environmental destruction and family history. After learning it was an excerpt from her book, this book I’m supposedly reviewing, I promptly ordered it and, four days later, here we are. I sat down to read the first few poems, to see how they compared, if they compared, to what I loved about the excerpt. Two hours later I had read every word on each of its 111 pages. I really loved this book; I loved the feelings it gave me, the sense of having spent time within another person’s mind; not having them explain their thoughts, but experiencing them.
I will read anything else H. G. Dierdorff writes, and I will read more poetry going forward. It seems to me that literary journals should be the film festivals of writing. Writers submitting excerpts to be discovered, to entice an audience, critics curating. On YouTube and Letterboxd I can follow hundreds of fantastic film critics, who travel to festivals around the world to find new works, new creative voices, and share them with their audiences. It saddens me that there is apparently no modern literary equivalent, but at least now I will have my journals.
— 4/5 —
Life Before Man, by Margaret Atwood
She couldn’t explain why her discovery that rocks were different from each other and had special names was so important. The names were a language; not many other people might know it, but if you found one who did, you would be able to talk together. Only about rocks, but that would be something.
— Life Before Man, pp. 97
Life Before Man is the first Atwood book that tested my patience. The characters were mostly excellent as usual, but the narrative progressed at such a snail’s pace due to following three character perspectives in such detail.
This is the problem. She knows by now that people do not behave the way she wishes them to. So what should she do, change wishes?
— Life Before Man, pp. 298
Similar to my feelings about Trainspotting, there were individual chapters that were absolutely brilliant (Lesje at the dinner party, Chris and Nate playing chess), but I found large sections to be a slog. I think the novel could have been 100 pages shorter and got the same ideas across.
China does not exist. Nevertheless she longs to be there.
— Life Before Man, pp. 351
Another knock out ending, though. Atwood doesn’t miss.
— 3/5 —
Poems and Short Stories
I continue reading short works in hope of learning how to write. Once again a # means I loved it, and I’ve introduced the shebang (#!) for the special case something was so 5/5 good I’d universally recommend it.
Had
- Statement on Violence, by Samuel Day Wharton
Permafrost
- Elevation, by Alfredo Lafarga
- Lick the Knife, by Desmond Everest Fuller #
- Maybe a Deer, by Michael Czyzniejewski #
- Disafiliation, by Donald Pasmore
- Amber, by Erin Rodoni
- Old Couple, by Tara Mandarano #
- Salt & Ice, by Glo Chitwood
- Kith, by Anne Duncan #
- Veneration, by Shannon Bowring
- [Voicemails in Slow Dissociation], by Judy Xie #
- As the West Coast Burns, by Hannah Dierdorf #!
Litro
- Illinois, by Desmond Everest Fuller #
- Chances Are, by John Brantingham #
Carve
- The Road Out of Juneau, by Caitlin Scarano #
Dead Mule
- Twenty-Three, by Tobi Brun
Other
- Painted Eyes, by Tobi Brun
Music
Not as many great new albums yet, but the summer looks promising.
Nowhere, CA (2026), song by Hana Bryanne
Hana Bryanne’s album Dollface was my obsession during the holiday months of 2024-2025; I must have listened to it 20 or 30 times while on vacation in Mexico. Her new song Nowhere, CA is just as excellent; hopefully it’s indicative of a new album in the works!
The Killjoy (2023), by Sarah Gross
I’m not usually one for country, but Sarah’s music is a lovely, modern, catchy mix of country with indie folk/pop/rock and progressive lyricism. I can’t wait for her new album in July, the two singles are bangers!
YouTube
I’ve added a section for YouTube because I found some brilliant channels and I’ve nowhere else to shout them out.
Alison (@alisontalksbooks)
Alison is a refreshingly earnest, open, and authentic video essayist. She writes a substack that is equally worthwhile.
Marisa (@largeicedmochalatte)
It took me a litte while to understand the true brilliance of what Marisa is doing with her fast-paced, self-deprecating, over-sharing videos, that she purportedly writes on the subway after work, and films from her one-bedroom New York City appartment, but she is one of the most authentically hilarious people I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.
I think a lot of, you know, the reasons not to kill yourself kind of go out the window when you, when you really are an athiest. I don’t think you should do it, and this is an anti-suicide channel, uhm, because suicide is a lot of work, and why are you doing all that. If I ever die just know I, I am probably happy about it, but I didn’t do that shit myself. That was an act of god… So to speak.
Her channel is a relatable, old-YouTube, sad-werid-person-talks-to-camera vlog, but written, performed, and editied by one of the most talented comedians on the platform. I’ve had to stop listening to the videos in public because I was embarassing myself laughing.