ESOTERIC BOOK RECCOMENDATIONS
ACADEMIC SATIRE FOR YOUR UNDERGRAD DISILLUSIONMENT
STRAIGHT MAN by RICHARD RUSSO - 4/5
English professor at underfunded liberal arts college in Pennsylvia runs various schemes to infuriate collueges, including threating to kill a goose for a higher budget. Hilarious with a serious tone.
One star knocked off for all the lazy jokes people made about my sexuality while I was reading this.
THE NETANYAHUS by JOSHUA COHEN 5/5
Possibly the best book I've read all year. a historical account of when Benzion Netanyahu came to teach at Cornell, execpt this time he arrives at a midwest liberal arts college, living with the only Jewish Professor in town.
Cohen manages to make this both a deep reflection of American Jewishness, and as the NYT put it, "it's girlfriend, Isreal" while also being funnier than almost anything I've ever read.
THE SECRET HISTORY by DONNA TART 5/5
This is THE academic satire, the blueprint, and if you haven't read it...forget about sleeping. Local scholarship student enters cult of classics students who don't know what the moonlanding is. Some other things happen too, of course, but I'll let you figure it out
OLD SCHOOL by Tobias Wolff - 4/5
God, I love this book. Picked it up randomly while working a terrible job. Anyway, takes place at a boys' boarding school (think dead poets' society) where the boys write short stories for the chance of being chosen by a visiting writer for a conversation.
1 Star knocked off for a strange ending, but absolutley worth the read just for Wolff's scathing satire of Ayn Rand, where the main character becomes deliurious over her.
A FANTASY HATERS FAVORITE FANTASY BOOKS...(my opinion matters the most)
SIX OF CROWS by LEIGH BARDUGO 5/5
This book, and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom, are the best of the YA genre for me. Or maybe I'm just biased because I love heists. Either way, the people are right on this. Bardugo can handle a cast of six characters with ease. There's a fury in these books that keeps me coming back to them.
2024 reads
APRIL The Searcher - Tara French 2/5Ulysses - James Joyce (ask me my thoughts about this book and I run) MARCH Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson 4/5
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter - Simone de Beauvoir 5/5
We Had to Remove This Post - Hanna Bervoets 3/5
The Hunter - Tana French 4/5
Another Country - James Baldwin
American Pastoral - Philip Roth 5/5
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Why be happy when you could be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson?
FEBUARY
To be taught, if fortunate - Becky Chambers 3.5/4
Marytr! - Kaveh Akbar 4/5
JANUARY
Don't Look at Me Like That - Diana Athill 3/5
Stay True - Hua Hsu 4/5
2023 reads
JANUARY Either/Or - Elif Bautman FEBUARY If Beale Street could talk - James Baldwin 5/5MARCH
THE BRAIN DEAD MEGAPHONE - George Saunders 3/5
APRIL
Straight Man - Richard Russo 4/5
MAY The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman 4/5
Devotions - Mary Oliver 5/5
Sea of Tranqulity - Emily St. Mandel 4/5
JUNE
The White Album - Joan Didieon 5/5
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin 4/5
The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai 4/5
Afterparties - Anthony Veasna So 5/5
JULY
Old School - Tobias Woolf 4/5
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk 4/5
Black Friday 4/5
AUGUST
At the Existenitalist Cafe - 5/5
We Sold Our Souls - Grady Hendrix 4/5
Run Towards the Danger - Sarah Polley 3/5
The Secret to Superhuman Strength - Alison Bechdel 5/5
SEPTEMBER
Bluebeard - Kurt Vounget 4/5
Strong Female Character - Fern Brady 4/5
OCTOBER
Monstrillo - Gerardo Sámano Córdova 4/5
Let The Record Show - Sarah Schulman 4/5 (partly read, lots of skipping around)
NOVEMBER The Netanyahus - Joshua Cohen 5/5
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson 5/5
DECEMBER
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 3.5/5
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky 5/5
Bright Young Women - Jessica Knoll 4/5
POEMS TO SLICE YOUR HEART OPEN (IN THE ABSENSE OF A KNIFE)
THINKING ABOUT LIT...
reflecting on the horrors (YA Fiction)