I'll tell you something else deeply meaningful to me today: @archipelagobooks.bsky.social is publishing Sevgi Soysal's "Walking." It's the first translation I've sponsored, something I've wanted to do for a long time. When I read Soysal's "Dawn," I knew I wanted to see her other work in print.
Great article on why surrealism still matters and can "spark the seeds of permanent dissent." There have been 3 new translations of Breton's writing, including Nadja by Mark Polizzotti.
Organizing Pessimism | Los Angeles Review of Books
André Breton, necropolitics, and 100 years of surrealism.
lareviewofbooks.org
Tiny haul from the 7Stories Press sale. Looking forward to reading The Rabbits’ Rebellion with my kiddo. It sounds relevant, sadly. The Nettel is a mystery but has blurbs from Luiselli and Schweblin. So I’m excited to try it. (Ty @sevenstories.bsky.social!)
Ah, Friday night. Fairly buzzed on half frozen margarita mix but sober enough to read Elmer and the Dragon to my 7yo. I wouldn’t trade this life for a billion dollars.
New t-shirt. Adding some color to my wardrobe. Grateful to @coffeehousepress.bsky.social for this cool design.
“It’s like sex, but cleaner. And nobody gets hurt.” Love this line from Jesse Plemons’s character in Bugonia, which I’m watching now.
It's as if Jean Cocteau and Helen Weinzweig got together, made a film, and named it Meshes in the Afternoon.
Happy pub date to BEST LITERARY TRANSLATIONS 2026 from @deepvellum.bsky.social. I’m very proud to have a translation in this volume, a poem by a Kyiv-based poet Olga Bragina, first published in @consequencef.bsky.social. Buy the book: store.deepvellum.org/products/bes... #booksky #translation
This was exhilarating. I’ve heard good things here too about The New Animals and likely have it in my near future.
I’m enjoying this one. Grateful to @grantrintoul.bsky.social for his recent review. Also to @iancurtin.bsky.social for mentioning the connection to Of Cattle and Men, one of my favorite reads last year.
I’m a little bummed not to be in Baltimore with the friends I met last year in LA. The silver lining is I love my routine. Still.
Book mail. Such a wonderful critical voice at the heart of Comyns’s work and I’ve heard great things about this book: Avril Horner’s biography of her.
"In lieu of flowers, the family and Zipporah Films kindly request that you support your local PBS affiliate or independent bookstore in Frederick Wiseman’s memory."
Enjoying this book that has me in the head of a guy who has helped his coworkers commit a murder. Tr. by Miranda France.
My getting revaccinated might have to wait in line at Walgreens reading. As things turned out the line was too short to read much.
“It’s true that the world was failing at its one task - of remaining a world. Pieces were breaking off. Seasons had become postmodern.” Thinking about this interesting if maybe not helpful way of describing climate change. From Shelia Heti’s Pure Colour.
People weaving in and out of traffic lanes, cutting people off at warp speed, etc. should know the rest of us can tell they’re having a panic attack.
“It is more difficult to labour with educated men, with cultivated minds and moreover predisposed to skepticism, than with the uneducated.” Letter from a 19th c. evangelical quoted in Hofstadter’s Anti-intellectualism in American Life
My mom found a baby rattle snake on her porch last night at her house in Georgetown, TX. Always good to corner venomous creatures for a photo sesh.
I picked this up a while back from @ebbooksellers.bsky.social and was surprised to find my preorder had come in as a signed copy. It’s an excellent collection. Also, I like the way the “J” and “y” cut in Joy Williams’s signature.
After a year’s hiatus, I’m very excited to unveil this years winter holiday catalog. Chock-full of favorites & curiosities — an assemblage that we hope is representative of our small store. If you like, please share! simplebooklet.com/holiday-cata...
Holiday Catalog 2025
Holiday Catalog 2025
simplebooklet.com
A couple of brash and velvety ones up in the latest (really stacked) issue of @yourimpossiblevoice.com — hope you’ll check them out (there’s two links, see) yourimpossiblevoice.com/point-of-com... yourimpossiblevoice.com/of-the-lovers/
Of the Lovers | Issue 33
By Addison Zeller — "They are first seen, despite the general darkness, close to the window, from which they draw back prudently, it is to be supposed, in a slow lateral glide along the surface of the...
yourimpossiblevoice.com
“SEA NOW is one of several novels that ask how humans live in an apocalypse that isn’t impending but has actually arrived.” Read Rebecca Hussey on Eva Meijer’s SEA NOW (tr. Anne Thompson Melo): buff.ly/ZtpAsrS @ofbooksandbikes.bsky.social @catranslation.org @twolinespress.com
I haven’t posted in a while what I’ve been reading. Here are books I’ve read or (finally) finished in recent months. One story here is that I fell in love with Hanne Ørstavik.
Airports should all have rooms showing Christian Marclay’s The Clock.
Eve Babitz knows how to end male loneliness.
The town I spent most of my time in in Texas (Leakey) doesn’t have a bookstore (though it does have a library), but I did buy some books I’m looking forward to at Alienated Majesty in Austin. Also, I had the new @alvinlu.bsky.social waiting for me when I got back.
