Memoirs
While Lowell is perhaps not exactly a well-known name outside of academic and literary circles, Lowell has a lasting influence on modern poets, writers, and scholarship.
Rusalka
Rusalka is a kitten!
This little ball of tortitude is the newest addition to our family. We’re still getting to know her, but we do know that she’s very talkative and doesn’t like to be alone. She was adopted at ten weeks old in September 2020 and is the youngest cat in our household.
Rusalka is a tortoiseshell kitten, with beautifully brindled fur.
Who Has Seen the Wind
Who Has Seen the Wind is a boyhood in a space where the farm meets a just-developing urban reality. There’s an extensive cast of characters and a stream of events that flow as steadily and relentlessly as the passage of time, as Mitchell captures the insular nature of village life.
Millennial Crime Trilogy
The three books are substantial, but not overbearing at 300–375 pages each. Each of them is based on a criminal case and uses that case as roman à clef to explore a snapshot of different aspects of society at the turn of the last century through the lens of real events barely veiled.
O Caledonia
Janet is constantly berated about her awkwardness, her lack of interest in what are considered ‘female’ pursuits, and her love of the natural world. She seeks to define herself according to the person she wants to be, instead of the version of herself that others are trying to mold her into.
The Bloater
I hadn’t heard about Rosemary Tonks until lately when I skimmed part of an article about her in The New Yorker. It wasn’t so much her style or subject matter that drew me to her work. It was the fact that she seemed so dead set on destroying it.
You’ll Enjoy It When You Get There
Taylor’s stories usually take place around the home and centre on domestic issues, but I think that classifying her work as ‘domestic drama’ confers a feeling of banality that is quite unfair.
A Pale View of Hills
A Pale View of Hills is a short novel — arguably a novella — that centres around a woman named Etsuko who was born in Japan but has ended up in the UK after leaving a marriage behind. Set partially in the present and partially in the past, Etsuko reflects on a friendship she had with a woman named Sachiko.
Post Office
When I start reading something like Bukowski (or Hunter S Thompson or Irvine Welsh), my lovely spouse always listens so patiently while I tell her about the book I’m currently in the middle of. Then she looks at me with that beautiful, quizzical smile and asks me why I torture myself this way.
Something to Do with Paying Attention
Technically, the publication date on David Foster Wallace’s Something to Do with Paying Attention is 2022, because it is an extract from Wallace’s unfinished novel, The Pale King — specifically a monologue from one character that stands on its own as a novella.
The October Country
There’s no doubt that when I think of spooky stories, I think of Ray Bradbury. His narratives are referenced time and time again and have influenced countless writers in turn.