Book notes

what I’ve been reading lately:

  • Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books by Georges PerecTranslated by John Sturrock

    I didn’t realize when I requested this slim book of essays from the library that all nine pieces in it are also in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, which I’ve been meaning to read since, um, 2013 but haven’t yet, but that’s OK: Perec is great, and I find small books like this charming.

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  • Sticker by Henry Hoke

    Sticker is a “memoir in 20 stickers”: twenty short essays that range in timespan and topic from the Mr. Yuk stickers of Henry Hoke’s early childhood (adorning bottles of cleaning supplies under the sink) to a “Hilton Head” HH bumper sticker that also makes Hoke think of his own initials, and of “Heil Hitler”, and

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  • The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy CasaresTranslated by Ruth L.C. Simms

    It’s satisfying when I pick up a book I’ve been meaning to read for years and end up feeling like I appreciate it more now than I would have if I’d read it when I first heard of it, thanks to other things I’ve read now that I hadn’t read yet then. This book made

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  • LaserWriter II by Tamara Shopsin

    At the start of LaserWriter II we’re introduced to Claire, who’s 19 and applying for a job at Tekserve, an old-school, pre-Genius-Bar computer/printer repair shop that used to be on 23rd Street. We learn that Claire grew up in a household loyal to Apple from the start: they had the “first Mac, and an Apple

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  • Heidi by Johanna Spyri

    Heidi felt to me like one of those books I should have read in childhood but never did, and I was a little hesitant to read it as an adult because I was worried I would find it too sappy. In fact, I found it totally charming, despite its many references to God and despite

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  • Le Club des baby-sitters: Tome 1 by Ann M. Martin

    One night recently I was looking at New York Public Library’s ebook app and noticed a section for books in French. I read a Tintin book in French years ago but had been intimidated to try anything without pictures, despite my 1000-day Duolingo streak … until I saw that one of the French ebooks available

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  • Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

    I’m glad I read the Melville House “Art of the Novella” edition of this book: the “Illuminations” at the end of the book added some much-needed context, as it’s been a while since I studied transcendentalism in school. Having both “The Transcendentalist” and “Civil Disobedience” included with Bartleby the Scrivener felt really useful in terms

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  • These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Did I read this one as a kid? I can’t remember but I suspect not: I’m sure I read Little House in the Big Woods but I think I was pretty young at the time and I don’t know if I got this far in the series; I think I would have been bored by

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  • The Checklist by Addie Woolridge

    I don’t usually read “chick-lit” or “women’s fiction” or “romance” or “romantic comedy” or whatever you want to call this, but I got this ebook for free via Amazon First Reads last May and figured I’d give it a try. In the first chapter we’re introduced to Dylan Delacroix, a corporate productivity consultant in Houston:

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  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

    The Fire Next Time consists of two essays, one short and the other longer, both a mix of the personal and the more general, both about being Black in America. I’d read part of the longer piece in The New Yorker, and it made me want to read the whole thing. The first piece (the

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