Reading Roundup for September 2022
The month started with my favourite novel of the year and continued to produce excellent reads—read on for my recommendations.
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid: Book Review
What would happen if white people started turning brown, one by one? Mohsin Hamid explores the question in his latest novel.
August 2022 Reading Roundup
My reading in August was dominated by listening to six books by the same author on a long, long road trip across Europe.
Freedom and Death by Nikos Kazantzakis: Book Review
"Captain Wildboar was his apt nickname in Megalokastro. With his sudden rages, his deep, dark, round eyes, his short, stubborn neck and that jutting fang, the heavy, broad-boned man was really like a wild boar, rearing for the spring."
The View From Belmont by Kevyn Alan Arthur
The View From Belmont raises interesting questions of race and gender amid the barbarousness of a slave-owning society. The dual narrative was a promising technique, but it didn't feel fully realised to me. I'd have liked more of 1990s Trinidad…
June 2022 Reading Roundup
A summary of the books I read last month, taking me from Barbados to rural Montana via London and Italy.
Borges Marathon, Part 9: Et Cetera
This section in A Universal History of Iniquity includes several interesting fragments, some of which could provide the basis for interesting stories but are not really developed.
Book Review: Cambridge by Caryl Phillips
This dual narrative set in a 19th-century Caribbean island is an interesting exploration of a critical period, but the narratives feel unbalanced: we spend a lot of time immersed in the prejudices of the plantation owner's daughter, while the account…
May 2022 Reading Roundup
Here's what I read this month, from a novel set in Cyprus and partly narrated by a fig tree to an exploration of the importance of disorder in cities.