William Grant

Bookshelf

Posted on May 14, 2024

Inspired by the likes of Collison, below are notes on books and internet writing I’ve enjoyed (or not enjoyed). I read way too many Substacks, and these short notes are as much for my organisation/mnemonic purposes as anything else.

Aside - I’ve noticed these online book trackers are often wall-to-wall Classics and vast works of non-fiction, but I’ll attempt to stay honest (I’ve read every discworld book again this year, in order, and I read a ton of bad scifi).

May 2024

John Le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (also Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, and The Looking-Glass War): - TSWCIFTC is an incredibly immersive spy thriller, and deserves its laurels. Paints an extremely credible picture of poor decisionmaking. Also every scene description and piece of dialogue is a glimpse into a kind of UK society of which the barest traces remained when I was growing up, so it reminds me of my grandparents. TLGW, the sequel, is somehow incredibly similar but with a very different emotional effect - it’s much more brutal in its description of its characters’ cowardices and failings, and tragic. The original plan was to read all the Smiley novels but TLGW took the wind out of my sails.

April 2024

Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking About This: - Almost incomprehensible and transcendently beautiful tale that is mostly about twitter. For a specific person who’s too online (me) it’s incredibly powerful and moving, for someone with a normal relationship to the internet it may be a struggle to get through the start.

Prev. 2024

Gene Wolfe, Book of the New Sun: - Really cool world-building, very strange.

Cormac McCarthy, Passenger/Stella Maris

Ned Beauman, Venomous Lumpsucker

China Mieville, Perdido Street Station & The Scar & Iron Council

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire

Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor

Emily St John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

Oedipus Trilogy (new translation by Bryan Doerries)

Substacks of note