What Writers Read by Pandora Sykes (Finished 5 February 2026)

Empire of AI by Karen Hao (Finished 31 January 2026)

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker (Finished 30 January 2026)

Under the Eye of the Big Bird: A Novel by Hiromi Kawakami (Finished 25 January 2026)

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Finished 22 January 2026)

Notes: I didn’t get much from this book, which I listened to as an audiobook, other than the idea that creativity is a process and go with the flow.

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (Finished 20 January 2026)

Notes: I didn’t get much out of his descriptions of the philosophers and think his portrayal of Montaigne was inaccurate. The idea is good, the execution is poor.

There is No Place for Us, Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Finished 14 January 2026)

Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday (Finished 8 January 2026)

Notes: This book would provide insight into how some people achieved greatness, but, after the introduuction, there is little unity in exposition other than a rambling and repetitive tone.

Something To Do With Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace (Finished 10 December 2025)

Notes: This novella got me back into DFW. I first read it in the Pale King, but didn’t appreciate its message about how critical moments can give perspective.

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang (Finished 20 November 2025)

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang (Finished 17 November 2025)

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (Finished 15 November 2025)

Exploding the Phone by Hil Lapsley (Finished 12 November 2025)

Friends with words : adventures in languageland by Martha Barnette (Stopped 9 November 2025)

Notes: Rambling, little novel. I found the style too kitcshy.

Beyond the Little Blue Box by John Draper (Stopped 6 November 2025)

Notes: The book was poorly written and meandered. I had already read Exploding the Phone. This didn’t add more, or at least by 50 pages in, it wasn’t clear it was going to.

Language City by Ross Perlin (Stopped 5 November 2025)

Mindmasters: the data-driven science of predicting and changing human behavior by Sandra Matz (Stopped 4 November 2025)

Notes: Afterf 100 pages the book contained nothing novel and too many extended personal anecdotes.

The Hearing Trupmet by (Stopped 20 October 2025)

Notes: I found this book rambling and not in a good DFW or Jose Saramago way.

What in me is dark: the revolutionary afterlife of Paradise Lost by Orlando Reade (Finished 11 September 2025)

Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (Finished 8 July 2025)

Notes: This was a great and lyrical read. I think I will read it in Spanish. I imagine there is subtext I missed on a first read and in translation.

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (Stopped 20 May 2025)

Notes: The writing was slow, the characters banal. It seems I’m not the only one who didn’t find the book engagaing (Reddit).

Free Day by Inès Cagnati (Stopped 10 May 2025)

Notes: The book started out bleak and unoriginal. A beleagured protagonist, out-of-place, abused by her family and ostracized by her peers. Perhaps it is more lyrical in French.

The Witch of Colchis by Rosie Helwett (Finished 15 April 2025)

Nouvelle Babel by Michel Bussi (Finished 10 April 2025)

The Golem and the Jinn by Helene Wecker (Finished 1 April 2025)

Andromeda: A Space Age Tale by Ivan Yefremov (Finished 25 February 2025)

Forty Days and Forty Nights by Amber Edwards and Justin Scott (Finished 20 February 2025)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (Finished 10 February 2025)

A Spartan’s Sorrow by Hannah Lynn (Finished 2 February 2025)

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller (Stopped 25 January 2025)

Notes: This book was a rambling memoir. Not a good discussion of the books or juxtaposition of their themes with modern life.

Andromeda by Ivan Yefremov (Finished 21 January 2025)

Notes: This was a fantastic book.

Ariadne’s Crown by Meadoe Hora (Stopped 5 January 2025)

Notes: This book was so poorly written that I could not finish it. Just not my style. It underscored Ben McEvoy’s admonition to avoid the literary equivalent of junk food. Other writers have done better with this material.

Song of Sacrifice by Janell Rhiannon (Finished 2 January 2025)

Notes: This book, for me, lacked substance. It explored superficially the very interesting topics of the relationships between Achilles and Oenone and Priam and Hecuba. All the males were portrayed as one-dimensional as the women in the Iliad.

Queens of Themyscira by Hannah Lynn (Finished 28 December 2024)

Homer and His Iliad by Robin Lane Fox (Finished 24 December 2024)

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Finished 20 December 2024)

Notes: I found the book too slow and the characters not engaging. Her writing is lyrical but, to me, it felt like it was trying too hard to be poetic.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Finished 12 December 2024)

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (Finished 14 November 2024)

Parole de Machines by Alexei Grinbaum (Finished 4 November 2024)

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (Finished 2 November 2024)

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami (Finished 2 November 2024)

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami (Finished 24 October 2024)

The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Finished 20 October 2024)

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms by Amy Zegart (Finished 17 October 2024)

La Traversée des Temps (Tome 1) by Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt (Finished 10 October 2024)

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Finished 10 April 2024)

The Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader by Clarence Brown (Finished 8 April 2024)

Les chambres de bois by Anne Hébert (Finished 28 December 2023)

Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin (Finished 12 December 2023)

Psychonauts by Mike Jay (Finished 8 December 2023)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary (Finished 18 October 2023)

Ithaca by Claire North (Finished 13 October 2023)

Ulysse from Bagdad by Éric-Emmanuel Schmidt (Finished 4 October 2023)

The American Canon by Harold Bloom (Finished 22 September 2023)

Mythos by Stephen Fry (Finished 21 August 2023)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Finished 15 August 2023)

The Radium Girls by Kate More (Finished 14 August 2023)

A Wicked Company by Philipp Blom (Finished 26 July 2023)

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Finished 1 July 2023)

Axiomatic by Greg Egan (Finished 18 June 2023)

Solito by Javier Zamora (Finished 12 June 2023)

Mythos by Stephen Fry (Finished 10 June 2023)

The Half Known Life by Pico Iyer (Finished 27 May 2023)

The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander (Finished 21 May 2023)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Henlein (Finished 6 May 2023)

Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Finished 27 April 2023)

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Finished 20 April 2023)

Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Cambrioleur by Maurice LeBlanc (Finished 20 April 2023)

House of Names by Colm Tóibín (Finished 9 April 2023)

Diaspora by Greg Egan (Finished 8 April 2023)

Notes: The narrative was uneven and Mr. Egan’s use of jargon obscures his point. He explores the important idea of what it means to be human if you become a disembodied mind, and then even move to another dimension, but the exposition was much poorer than, say, Klara and the Sun.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Finished 26 March 2023)

Notes: I very much liked the portrayal of Klara, as intellectualy simplistic yet trenchant and authentic. Mr. Ishiguro nicely dissociates emotional intelligence from declarative knowledge while showing that a machine could be more human in either than a human.

Permutation City by Greg Egan (Finished 23 March 2023)

L’événement by Annie Ernaux (Finished 10 September 2022)

Notes: I buy French books from French Books Online, not Amazon.

Mersault, contre-enquête by Kamel Daoud (Finished 18 July 2022)

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Finished 10 July 2022)