The Vastness of the Dark by Alistair MacLeod
The Vastness of the Dark seems to be a quite simple tale about a young man escaping from the confines of his family to…
February/March 2021 Reading Roundup
I missed my monthly reading roundup in February, so here are two months together. As you’ll see, they were dominated by one…
The Ants Will Come and Tell Me
As the Empire was falling apart, Britain had a problem: how to keep control of all its former colonies and their resources…
Borges Marathon, Part 2: The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro
I love the writing of Jorge Luis Borges. Back in the early days of this blog, I was so deeply affected by…
The Reality of Anti-Fascism
Reading The US Antifascism Reader lately gave some useful context on this much-maligned but essential movement. It's a collection of essays and…
January 2021 Reading Roundup
January wasn't a great month, but I did read some good books. Here's a quick roundup.
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
What does it mean to be a woman? In the memorable novel Breasts and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami explores the question by looking…
From Concentric to Maculate: Marco D’Eramo’s Geographies of Ignorance
As we all know, travel has become a lot easier in recent decades—at least for those of us born into relative privilege…
Best Books I Read in 2020
There’s a quote by Alice Walker that I love: “When I was a child, I read books for entertainment and information; I…