the thought of the thing

Currently hopping between Can Xue and Ben Okri, both stellar.

The Solà is so so good

Summer Reading "Iʼll keep after summer/until Iʼve forestalled his pretexts and lies,/Iʼll keep after him/and heʼll keep after me—/summer and a man/telling each other lies." —Najwan Darwish

I wrote about some of the best books I've read in the heat of this summer, including works by António Lobo Antunes, Lisa Tuttle, Alexis Wright, Jacqueline Harpman, Irene Solá, Yoko Tawada, and Marcia Douglas. thethoughtofthething.substack.com/p/summer-rea...

Quiet Dawn by Jean-Claude Fignolé and translated by Kaiama L. Glover and Laurent Dubois. The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley. We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Camara and translated by Robin Myers. Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher.

Some highly anticipated library orders of mine came in. I can’t believe Quiet Dawn hasn’t been discussed much online since it just released. Just look at that opening.

Midnight is Not In Everyone’s Reach and Lili is Crying share a certain fluidity that is helping me work through some polyvocal stuff I’m doing in my own book.

Some Odd Days: Journals, 2020-2024, by Joseph Alcala Prose, chapbook, 20 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Some Odd Days is a collection of journal entries pulled from handwritten notebooks dated between 2020-2024. Daily observations and struggles, pieces of fiction, memories, and thoughts on the process and nature of writing all converge to form a portrait of a writer working through the post-pandemic era. Much of the work is grounded in and around the city of Indianapolis, however regional and international travel punctuate the text and bring forth new movements and ideas within memory and art. Sequenced not so much chronologically as thematically, Some Odd Days exemplifies the role of the personal journal to condense time and space into a more honest and multi-faceted vision of self-hood.

My debut chapbook, Some Odd Days, is available now from Bottlecap Press! It is a collection of journal writing from 2020-2024 that blends daily life, fiction, memories, travel writing, and thoughts on the nature writing to form a portrait of yours truly. bottlecap.press/products/som...

In Conversation with Sophia Terazawa "I believe I'm a ghost..."

I spoke with Sophia Terazawa about her new novel, Tetra Nova. Like the book, our conversation is an expansive exploration of borders, ghosts, disfluency, time, and love. open.substack.com/pub/thethoug...

Eclipse was such a welcome surprise! Every other book by his sounds so different that I’m not quite sure where to continue.

🫶🏻

The Year in Reading Brief notes on great books

Brief notes on some of my favorite reads from last year: open.substack.com/pub/thethoug...

New shelves, new books, new lines (from Herscht 07769) to mull over

“you can always corner someone at the office or library and give them the Miss MacIntosh treatment: “What is a hurricane sky? What is the color of opal? If a ship sinks and no one seeks it sinking and there are no survivors to tell that it has gone, how tell that it has gone?”

My writing nook is coming along nicely 😏

Moving entails boxes of books, empty shelves, and a good long novel to see me through.

Working on author photos for her upcoming story collection Hagiographies of Lost Dogs.

The White Book // Han Kang // Deborah Smith

The upcoming Özlü is phenomenal, I recommend snatching an arc if you haven’t!

Tezer Özlü, Oğuz Atay, José Donoso

It hasn’t been made clear yet, but since the book takes place on Nov. 18 and came out on that day, I’m assuming they will release yearly on Nov. 18 until they finish. I just hope they continue doing two volumes at once! And according to the back copy there will be seven volumes.

The dangers/joys of book posting 🧡

On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle. Translated by Barbara Haveland.
I feel unsafe reading this. 10/10.

I’m with you on Lispector and Morrison, almost with Woolf 🙌

From Waiting for the Fear by Oğuz Atay, translated by Ralph Hubbell

Absolutely engrossed in Oğuz Atay. Had to read this spread several times.

Sky for sky

Quickly becoming one of my favorite titles by nyrb

sometimes you need a sort of unhappiness to reach a sort of happiness

💜 Still doesn't seem as active as twitter but it's nice to have another space!

On Anniversaries and Miss Macintosh, My Darling "Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion."

For those outside of my twitter crowd, I wrote about memory and trauma in the novels Miss Macintosh, my Darling by Marguerite Young and Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson. My latest on Substack: open.substack.com/pub/thethoug...