Borges Marathon, Part 14: The Lottery in Babylon
How do you explain the effects of random chance? Borges invented an all-powerful Lottery governing all possible events in life to help us think through it.
May 2024 Reading Roundup
Here are the books I read last month, from historical fiction to a futuristic novel and a non-fiction book about a radical solution to climate change. Pretty much everything except the present, then, which is just what I needed right…
The Future by Naomi Alderman
What kind of future do we want? How would it look if it was based on trust instead of fear? For a novel that starts with the end of the world, The Future has a lot of interesting things to…
Borges Marathon, Part 13: The Circular Ruins
What happens when one man tries to dream another into existence? Jorge Luis Borges imagines this scenario in this thought-provoking story.
October Reading Roundup
My reading for October 2023 was dominated by the climate crisis and the horrific situation in Gaza.
Reading Australia
A roundup of my reading of Australian literature during a long road trip around the country.
Best Books I’ve Read So Far This Year
At the halfway point of 2023, here are the highlights of my reading year so far, including a Saudi Arabian novel, a history of Algeria and an Australian masterpiece.
Danny Boy by Barry Walsh
My review of Danny Boy by Barry Walsh, a novel of beautifully drawn relationships and the sometimes funny, sometimes painful experience of growing up on a council estate in 1960s London.
November 2022 Reading Roundup
It was an all-fiction month for me in November, involving a 17-year-old sex worker in the US, a novelist seeing her stolen manuscript come to life, a young woman fleeing from London to Jamaica to escape an abusive relationship, and…