I am a thought leader, I will lead your thoughts
This song is very good and extremely catchy. I have woken up in the middle of the night with this song stuck in my head, which is how I usually know for sure that a song is both good and catchy (though I’ll admit that this rule of thumb has its limits, since I’ve woken up with bad songs stuck in my head too, in addition to good songs that were so catchy that they made me feel a little sick. Spoon songs often fall in the latter category; there is something in their music that seems to disrupt my brain chemistry). Diet Cig make fun music.
Recommended Books
Loin de Médine
Assia Djebar
Incredible book about the women who were involved with the beginnings of Islam (including those women who opposed it), told in fragments, monologues, anecdotes. Moving and deeply fascinating.
Paris Nocturne
Patrick Modiano
Melville: A Novel
Jean Giono
2018
Emergency Brake
Ruth Madievsky
Great poetry book, full of surprises and vicious twists
Fossil Capital
The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
Andreas Malm
A Void
Georges Perec
A Brief Alphabet of Torture
Vi Khi Nao
I Am Flying Into Myself
Bill Knott
Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men (a.k.a Hologram)
Padgett Powell
The Known World
Edward P. Jones
Homesick for Another World
Ottessa Moshfegh
Gork, the Teenage Dragon
Gabe Hudson
The Sellout
Paul Beatty
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith
Loving
Henry Green
Margaret the First
Danielle Dutton
The City
Melanie Amaral and Stephen Crowe
Umbilical Hospital
Vi Khi Nao
Mysterious and shifting poem, made of sheep, grass, and wilderness.
At the Lightning Field
Laura Raicovich
2017
Made for Love
Alissa Nutting
Late Arcade
Nathaniel Mackey
The Engagement
Georges Simenon
L’Étranger
Albert Camus
(Read this in French and it took me what felt like four months to finish. Great and strange)
The End of Vandalism
Tom Drury
Sixty Stories
Donald Barthelme
Goodbye, Vitamin
Rachel Khong
Funny, sweet, and totally engrossing.
Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador
Horacio Castellanos Moya
Miles: The Autobiography
Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe
The Babysitter at Rest
Jen George
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
Geoff Dyer
Noble Hustle
Colson Whitehead
Try Never
Anthony Madrid
Madrid’s incredible follow-up to I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say is mind-bending, charming, and full of rhyme and wisdom
L’enfant Noir
Camara Laye
The Hero and the Blues
Albert Murray
New Collected Poems
W. S. Graham
Fish In Exile
Vi Khi Nao
One of the best books I read in 2016
Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis
Benjamin Kunkel
2016
Loitering
Charles D’Ambrosio
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
God Is Round
Juan Villoro
The Surrender
Scott Esposito
A Man Lies Dreaming
Lavie Tidhar
The Great Glass Sea
Josh Weil
Combien de terre fault-il à un homme
Annelise Heutier and Raphaël Urtwiller
French children’s book based on a story by Tolstoy. Beautiful artwork.
Slant Six
Erin Belieu
Magic Hours
Tom Bissell
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
David Shafer
Mislaid
Nell Zink
Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve
Tom Bissell
The Getting Rid
Anthony Madrid
Poetry chapbook; funny, wild, catchy; hard rhymes, birthday poems, and unhinged cheers. So good.
Mr. Cogito
Zbigniew Herbert
Third (fourth?) time I’ve read this and it gets better every time
While the Women Are Sleeping
Javier Marias
Calligraphy Lesson
Mikhail Shishkin
The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories
Hassan Blasim
Apex Hides the Hurt
Colson Whitehead
In A Strange Room
Damon Galgut
The Old Philosopher
Vi Khi Nao
The Old Philosopher, a poetry collection, is hilarious, sensual, beguiling, and wild. There is a set of Biblical poems in this book that will stay with you forever (that is a guarantee) and other poems that will do the same. It’s unlike pretty much anything else out there. Check it out.
Zona
Geoff Dyer
Sphinx
Anne Garréta
Newspaper
Édouard Levé
War Music
Christopher Logue
The Making of Zombie Wars
Aleksandar Hemon
Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh
Undermajodomo Minor
Patrick deWitt
The Peregrine
J.A. Baker
Where Have You Been?
Michael Hofmann
Cries for Help, Various
Padgett Powell
The Pickle Index
Eli Horowitz
Class War
Megan Erickson
Legal Voodoo Prevention
Recent Posts
- Golden Daze – Simpatico, Broken Social Scene – Let’s Try the After Vol. 1, NOV3L – NOVEL
- selling – On Reflection
- Pedro the Lion – Phoenix
- Accounting Procedures 2018
- Art Brut – Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!
Essentials
Other Essentials
Writing Elsewhere
- BULL
- Redivider
- Penny
- The Aerogram (review of Uday Prakash’s “Girl with the Golden Parasol”)
- The Best of Gigantic (anthology)
- Asymptote Journal (review)
- Eyeshot
- Gigantic
- The Silent History (advance field reports)
- Parcel #3
- Big Fiction #1
- Everyday Genius
- McSweeney’s
- History of A Six Weeks’ Tour (afterword)
Archives
- February 2019
- January 2019
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010