what I’ve been reading lately:
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On the Calculation of Volume II
(by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland) In the first volume of this book, Tara Selter, who’s stuck in a time loop where she keeps waking up on November 18, suggested to her husband that maybe they should go to Paris together, since that’s where the time loop started for her and maybe if she
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On the Calculation of Volume I
(by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland) When this book opens, Tara Selter is experiencing the same day—November 18th—for the 121st time. She tells us about her day—this 121st iteration of it— and a bit about who she is in normal life: she lives in a small town in France with her husband; they are
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The Hypocrite
(by Jo Hamya) Sophia, who’s in her late twenties, is a playwright whose play is being performed in a theater in London. Her father, who’s a novelist in his early sixties who hasn’t published a book in a while, is at the theater for a matinee performance; he knows nothing of what the play is
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One Aladdin Two Lamps
(by Jeanette Winterson) This book is partly a memoir, partly a work of literary criticism, partly a reflection on the world and its problems, and partly a retelling of some of the stories from One Thousand and One Nights. I think the retellings were my favorite aspect of the book, though there were other things
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Two short reads
Yesterday I realized that reading short things on the Kindle app on my phone is an excellent way to pass the time when waiting for a concert to start if I’m at a show by myself and don’t have actual book I’m reading with me (because it’s a hardcover and there’s no way that thing
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Winter
(by Val McDermid) This is a very writerly and very Scottish book about winter: McDermid talks about how she looks at bare tree branches in the winter as she works on her latest novel, and how she takes walks and works through plot and dialogue in her head, and also about going “guising” (like trick-or-treating
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Heated Rivalry
(by Rachel Reid) OK, this one was more my speed than Game Changer was. And I mean, I liked Game Changer, but I feel like Scott and Kip both have such golden retriever energy. Like, so earnest and eager and wholesome. And that’s fun and all, but the Shane/Ilya dynamic of rivals who hook up
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Game Changer
(by Rachel Reid) I haven’t watched the Heated Rivalry show at all, but I was looking for a fun February read and this definitely delivered. At the start of the book we meet Kip, who’s working at a juice bar making smoothies (though he’d rather be doing something that actually uses his history degree). One
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Netherland
(by Joseph O’Neill) Very close to the start of this book, the narrator gets a phone call in which he learns that someone he was friends with when he lived in New York is dead: and not just dead, but a murder victim. This is 2006, and the narrator, Hans, is back in London and
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Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas
(by Nick Hornby) Nick Hornby writes a column for The Believer called “Stuff I’ve Been Reading,” and periodically those columns are collected and released in book form. This is the second of these books that I’ve read, and it definitely makes want to go back to the beginning and read the ones that I missed.