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Books Read/Reread, March/April 2025

Olivia Laing, Everybody: A Book About Freedom Augustina Bazterrica, Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird Laura Marris, The Age of Loneliness Andrew Elias Colarusso, The Sovereign Andrea Long Chu, Authority Elizabeth Winkler, Shakespeare Was a Woman, and Other Heresies Eula Biss, On Immunity: An Innoculation* Renee Gladman, To After That Leila Taylor, Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread* A. E. Stallings, Like* Dionne Brand, The Blue Clerk Rebecca West, Radio Treason Richard Sharpe Shaver, Some Stones Are Ancient Books Bennett Sims, Other Minds, and Other Stories Dominic Pettman, Seeking Attention: 30 Ways of Being Present E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital to a Post-Capitalist World Alan Wiseman, The World Without Us Paul J. Kosmin, The Ancient Shore Chris Marker, Le Dépays Jeremy Mynott, The Story of Nature: A Human History Pheobe Boswel, Saidiya Hartman, Janaina Oliveira, Joseph M. Pierce, Christina Rivera Garza, Five Manifestoes for the Beautiful World Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, January/February 2025

Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World Ben Hecht, Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath* Jean-Baptiste Fressoz & Fabian Locher, Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change Eliot Weinberger, Angels & Saints Leanne Shapton, Waterloo--City, City--Waterloo Nina MacLaughlin, Winter Solstice: An Essay* Emily Mester, American Bulk: Essays on Excess Surekha Davies, Humans: A Monstrous History Sabrina Imbler, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures Louise Glück, Meadowlands* Rachel Cohen, A Chance Meeting: American Encounters José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon Delia Bacon, The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare, Unfolded W. G. Sebald, Silent Catastrophes * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, November/December 2024

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love* Paul Tremblay, Disappearance at Devil's Rock Elizabeth Willis, Liontaming in America Jon Fosse, A Shining Benjamin Labatut, The MANIAC Franz Kafka, Diaries Anne Carson, Grief Lessons* Anne Carson, An Oresteia* Mary Shelley, Frankenstein* Amy Shearn, Animal Instinct Yoko Ogawa, Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales* Christopher Brown, A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places László Földényi, Dostoevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts Into Tears George Edmondson & Klaus Mladek, A Politics of Melancholia: From Plato to Arendt Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows Mary McCarthy, Vietnam Kay Dick, They: A Sequence of Unease Gloria Dickie: Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future Mariana Enriquez, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Dionne Brand, Salvage: Readings from the Wreck Leanne Shapton, Guestbook: Ghost Stories Ellen Wayland-Smith, The Science of Last Things * = reread

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Books Read, September/October 2024

Ananda Lima, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil Anna Rasche, The Stone Witch of Florence T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead Elizabeth Hardwick, The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick Lena Valencia, Mystery Lights Susan Orlean, The Library Book Sofia Samatar, Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life Hasanthika Sirisena, Dark Tourist Blair LM Kelley, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class Christopher P. Heuer, Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of the Image Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church Hubert Wolf, The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal François J. Bonnet, The Order of Sounds: A Sonorous Archipelago

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Books Read/Reread, July/August 2024

Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees* Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather Karl Ove Knausgaard, So Much Longing In So Little Space Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound Stacey D'Erasmo, The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room* Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway* Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse* Elisa Gabbert, Any Person Is the Only Self Sara Gran, Come Closer* Cassandra Shaw, Nothing But Blackened Teeth Kathleen Jamie, Sightlines Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night* Mary Oliver, Upstream Remedios Varo, On Homo Rodans and Other Writings Patricia J. Williams, The Miracle of the Black Leg: Notes on Race, Human Bodies, and the Spirit of the Law Monica Black, A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany* Jon Greenaway, Capitalism: A Horror Story Philip Hoare, The Sea Inside Barry Lopez, About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History Leonard F. Guttridge, Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, May/June 2024

Alexandra West, Gore-Geous: Personal Essays on Beauty and Horror Ann Radcliffe, The Italian* Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho* Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance* Jules Michelet, The Sea Jac Jemc, The Grip of It Dubravka Ugresic, The Culture of Lies Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night Deborah Stratman & Sukhdev Sandhu, Geologic Listening Philip Hoare, The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea Jon Fosse, Septology Adrian Howkins, The Polar Regions: An Environmental History Johshua Blu Buhs, Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers Hirokai Sato, On Haiku Zito Madu, The Minotaur at Calle Lanza Robert MacFarlane, Stanley Donwood, & Dan Richards, Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unique Places Zdenka Sokolíčková, The Paradox of Svalbard: Climate Change and Globalisation in the Arctic Mary Shelley, Frankenstein* Becca Rothfield, All Things Are Too Small * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, March/April 2024

Jane Austen, Persuasion Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey* Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice* Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy & Their Own Families* Iris Moon, Melancholy Wedgwood B. Brian Foster, I Don't Like the Blues: Race, Place & the Backbeat of Black Life Danielle Dutton, Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other Maylis de Kerangal, Eastbound Anne Elizabeth Moore, Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes Joyce Mansour, Emerald Wounds Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things Alexander Kluge, Air Raid Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, Vol. 1* Edward W. Said, Said on Opera David Toop, Ocean of Sound: Ambient Sound and Radical Listening in the Age of Communication Michael F. Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, January/February 2024

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock* Dan Fox, Limbo Amy Shearn, Dear Edna Sloan Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia Nina MacLaughlin, Winter Solstice: An Essay Natania Meeker & Antonia Szabari, Radical Botany: Plants and Speculative Fiction Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room* Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own* Deb Chachra, How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World Anne Carson, Wrong Norma Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe Gerard de Nerval, The Illuminated Werner Herzog, Every Man for Himself and God Against All Ted Patrick with Tom Dulack, Let Our Children Go! Jonathan Lethem, Brooklyn Crime Novel Clive Scott & Nick Warr (ed.), Shadows of Reality: A Catalogue of W. G. Sebald's Photographic Materials * = Reread

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Books Read/Reread, November/December 2023

Jon Fosse, Trilogy J. K. Huysmans, Lá-bas Stephen King, Night Shift* Cristina Rivera Garza, The Iliac Crest Marina Benjamin, A LIttle Give: The Unsung, Unseen, Undone Work of Women Nina MacLaughlin, Winter Solstice Elaine Scarry, On Beauty, and Being Just Arthur Schnitzler, Dream Story* Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Lyric Novella Manjula Martin, The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History André Breton, Nadja* Patrick Modiano, Paris Nocturne Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now* Molly McGhee, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

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Books Read/Reread, September/October 2023

Samatha Hunt, The Unwritten Book: An Investigation Kaori Fujino, Nails and Eyes Mitch Horowitz, Modern Occultism: History, Theory, and Practice Teju Cole, Tremor J. M. Coetzee, The Pole Ken Hollings, Inferno: A Genealogy of 1960s Trash Culture Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, 13: The Story of the World's Most Popular Superstition* Stephen King, The Shining* Kevin Young, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News* Matthew Bowman, The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America Mark O'Connell, A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder Patrick Boyton, Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County Sam Anderson, Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis Margot and Rudolf Wittkower, Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists, A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution* Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf's Nose: Essays on Biography* Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse* Rachel Cantor, Half-Life of a Stolen Sister Diane Johnson, The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith, and Other Lesser Lives Hannah Arendt, On Lying and Politics Gladys-Marie Fry, Night Riders in Black Folk History* Sara Gran, Come Closer T Fleischmann, Syzygy, Beauty: An Essay Tiya Miles, Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation Carol Mayor, Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour Jade E. Davis, The Other Side of Empathy * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, July/August 2023

Cameron McWhirter & Zusha Elinson, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 Mike Rothschild, Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories Georges Bataille, Critical Essays, Vol. 1 (1944-1948) Enrico Monacelli, The Great Psychic Outdoors: Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism Paul Tremblay, The Beast You Are Angela Carter, Saints and Strangers Nina MacLaughlin, Wake, Siren Silvia Federici, Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice* Bianca Stone, The Möbius Strip Club of Grief* Danielle Trussoni, The Puzzle Master Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes Jessica Wang, Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers: Rabies, Medicine, and Society in an American Metropolis, 1840-1920 * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, May/June 2023

Gilles Deleuze, Coldness and Cruelty* Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Bleak Houses: Disappointment and Failure in Architecture David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder Charlotte Van den Broeck, Bold Ventures: Thirteen Tales of Architectural Tragedy Annie Ernaux, The Years Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani, Merits of the Plague Cody Cassidy, How to Survive HIstory: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes Girolamo Cardano, The Book of My Life Tom McCarthy, Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish Guinevere Turner, When the World Didn't End Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman & the Ideology of Pornography Nina MacLaughlin, Summer Solstice: An Essay Dionne Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging Doon Arbus, The Caretaker Ann Radcliffe, The Italian*

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Books Read/Reread, March/April 2023

Polina Barskova, Living Pictures Martin McDonagh, The Pillow Man Allison C. Meier, Grave Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Borealis Susan Howe, Concordance Rachel Cusk, Coventry Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or, a Life of Montaigne Nona Fernández, Voyager: Constellations of Memory Dorothe Nors, A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Rosemarie Garland Thomson (ed.), Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body* Catherine Prendergast, The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America Vincent Brown, Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War Kenzaburo Oē, A Personal Matter* Kenazburo Oē, The Silent Cry* Joseph Osmundson, Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead and the Small Things in Between Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings Jonathan Kennedy, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues Erik R. Seeman, Speaking with the Dead in Early America Susan Sontag (ed.), The Best American Essays, 1992 * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, January/February 2023

Kashana Cauley, The Survivalists Erica Berry, Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear Joanna Ebenstein, The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic* Judith Butler, What World Is This: A Pandemic Phenomenology Bianca Stone, What Is Otherwise Infinite Christy Wampole, The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation Justin T. Clark, The Zero Season Erik R. Seeman, Death in the New World: Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-1800 Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things* Suzan Lori-Parks, The America Play and Other Works Alexandra West, The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula Alexandra West, Films of the New French Extremity: Visceral Horror and National Identity Elvia Wilk, Death By Landscape* Janet Malcolm, Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory Erin L. Thompson, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments Michael E. Bell, Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires Roland Barthes, Sade/Fourier/Loyola* Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality Raymond Williams, Culture and Politics Lily Hoang, A Bestiary Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls Joel Warner, The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, November/December 2022

Anne Carson, Float* Susan Stewart, The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation Bianca Stone, The Möbius Strip Club of Grief A. E. Stallings, Like Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color Katy Kelleher, The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption John Berger, G* Arthur Schnitzler, Dream Story* Jeremiah Moss, Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York Ann Radcliffe, The Italian Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground* Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln, Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, September/October 2022

Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho* Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance Laure, The Collected Writings John A. Keel, The Mothman Prophecies* Bill and Jacqueline Kousoulas, Bridging the Tragedy: Silver Linings in the Mysterious Ohio River Valley Henry Petroski, To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure* Patricia Gray, The "Thing": Mothman, Devil, or Spirit Gray Barker, The Silver Bridge Sarah Lyons, How To Study Magic: A Guide to History, Lore, and Building Your Own Practice Montague Summers, The Werewolf Sabine Baring-Gould, The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition Andrea Long Chu, Females Katie Ives, Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams Amina Cain, A Horse at Night: On Writing Annie Ernaux, Happening Anna Badkhen, Bright Unbearable Reality Malcolm Gaskill, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World Michel Surya, Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography* * = reread

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Books Read/Reread, July/August 2022

Elvia Wilk, Death by Landscape Elena Passarello, Animals Strike Curious Poses Helen McDonald, Vesper Flights Christina Tudor-Sideri, Under the Sign of the Labyrinth* Sarah Kane, Blasted Sarah Kane, Phaedra's Love Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadward Muybridge and the Technological Wild West Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties* Shannon Mattern, Deep Mapping the Media City Ada Límon, The Carrying Kathryn Schulz, Lost & Found Monica Black, A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany Robert Glück, Margery Kempe* Sir Wallis Budge, Amulets and Talismans Jim Vandehei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz, Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More With Less Richard de Mille, The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies Gilles Deleuze, Coldness and Cruelty* Brandon LaBelle, Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance Benjamín Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World Stendhal, The Red and the Black* Guy Cools, Performing Mourning: Laments in Contemporary Art Michael P. Daley (ed.), Echoes of a Natural World * = reread