here’s what I read in may

*denotes favorite

denotes book club

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

• let’s just say I differed from consensus on this one

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

*On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle

• please someone read these with me, I don’t know how I’m going to make it to November waiting for the next one. this volume is especially concerned with shorthand for the passage of time, and how to mark it when the obvious metaphors have fallen away. what does it mean to spend time well when your main occupation is contemplating its construction? it’s fun to fantasize about all the things I’d learn if I had a groundhog day situation to do it in, but it makes so much more sense that I’d probably be preoccupied with mundane questions of comfort and routine.

Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman

*Audition by Katie Kitamura

• when/if you read this, please let me know so we can discuss. I don’t want to say more and accidentally color your thinking

Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted by Ben Okri

Sky Daddy by by Kate Folk

• do not read this on or near a flight

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson by Camille Peri

Sister Europe by Nell Zink

*Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

• truly a master of unsteady fiction, of narratives that never let you get your feet under you.

*Thrilled to Death: Selected Stories by Lynne Tillman

• fragments of bizarre perfection, stories like bullets

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb