08 Oct 2024 – Book round-up: July-Sept 2024

I felt like I hadn’t read much, but in fact I read 17 books this quarter. Here’s the notes on what stood out. Full list of what I’ve read this year on The Storygraph.

Most of these reviews come with a little amuse-bouche. Get a taste before committing to a full book.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Astonishingly powerful and terribly sad. I often choked up while reading it. It was my morning slow-read text, the short note format suits that kind of reading. Beautifully written and paced, with – alongside black thought – reflections of family, friendship, self. I highly recommend.

I am glad I read it when my day-time defenses were still sleping, there is so much to absorb. Even still, I could feel myself trying to pull away, rationalise my own whiteness out of the story... ‘that’s just US-ians, it’s not like that here’, ‘I would never do such a thing, say such a thing, behave like that.’ Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I am not also seeped in the poison that is white supremacy.

I’m grateful to read a book that starts to unstitch the ideologies of racism and white supremacy so enmeshed in our world. It is always good, no matter how uncomfortable, to continue the unlearning.

This essay is equally stunning and heart-wrenching.

The Surrounds: Urban Life within and beyond Capture by AbdouMaliq Simone

I don’t read that much within urban studies, so this was a bit of work. But sometimes the work is worth it, and this is definitely one of those times. Simone’s ideas are very powerful and I have been thinking about this regularly since reading it. The chapter ‘Forgetting Being Forgotten’ is incredible and the ethnographic snippets throughout the book are so good.

This standalone chapter by Simone is also very good, for the Deleuzians in the room.

Animals and Capital by Dinesh Wadiwel

I'm carrying on with my habit of reading everything that Dinesh Wadiwel writes. I don’t think many of you, gentle readers, would usually follow up on an animal’s book recommendation, but this one is also about capital and labour! It is an academic text, but it’s well-written and I found it smoother than Wadiwel’s first book Nevertheless, The War Against Animals might be my most cited book..

Don’t want to read the book? Wadiwel is speaking at the next Animal Scales seminar, which I highly recommend signing up for. It’s online, it’s free and it is going to be so good.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

I’ve read several writing books this year and generally the tips are to write every day Difficult when your job isn’t writing. or just dreadfully boring Pages and pages of grammar tools does not make good reading.. This book managed to be both pleasant to read and useful beyond our boy’s 2000 words a day.

I’ve experimented with various writing practices, from Morning Pages and other kinds of daily journalling (didn’t stick), to trying to work through a list of ideas I want to write about (ended up being rather infrequent).

Goldberg’s suggestions just worked for me and for the first time in my life, I have a regular writing practice. Also, her prompts are very nice. I’ve written a list of them in the back of my notebook to get me started on days when my brain feels too crowded to come up with ideas.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Re-read in honour of the book’s narrative beginning, 20 July 2024. And because it’s been 4 years since I read it the first time, I wanted the story fresh before starting the 2nd book.

This book is stunning, scary, hopeful, exciting, profound. Robin Sloan calls this the great American novel, and I am inclined to agree.

Extras: Octavia Butler’s writing notes and Parable of the Sower map (thanks Rod).

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This is one of those very weird books where you don’t really know what to say about it. Where it low-key changes your life but also you can’t really recommend it to anyone. It’s understated, leaves you hanging, and is a real mindfuck. Perhaps the biggest recommendation after all.

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

Recommended by Jon via Sloan.

Really fun. The character was deeply unlikable (to me) but very compelling. The game/world thing was very smart, and the world Banks builds is vast and rich. I felt the ending was a little abrupt and I’m not sure the bracelet thing was necessary – or at least seemed unresolved. I’d like a spin-off of the young girl he plays early in the novel Spoiler, the one where he cheats..

I enjoyed it enough to get started on another Culture book, Matter. Mostly because Jon is also reading it and I like talking about books with people who’ve read them.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Enjoyed how tense it is, even though it’s not a very mysterious mystery. Mixed feelings about the portrayal of all the characters and what they get away with. I think I liked Rebecca the most.

One thing I learned was that Hollywood used to have a rule that film characters couldn’t get away with murder (literally), so the original film ending was changed. More recent film unsatisfactory imo.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Something in my brain is broken because I just do not get Woolf fiction. Her essays, cool. Lesbian love letters, pour it into my eyeballs. But the novels I find so utterly and dreadfully boring. By synopsis, this should be my favourite book of all time, and yet.

I read To the Lighthouse years ago and remember nothing except that I couldn’t stand it. Not in an interesting, hateful way, just pure apathy. Sorry to the Woolf lovers, I know she’s very important and all that. My friend Sarah says Mrs Dalloway is brilliant, so I shall give that a go one day.