← Feed

Posts

• Post #3569037

  📗 “Geweten: Over Israël en Palestina” by Maurits de Bruijn I have more free time to read books right now because of all the soccer matches I’m not watching. I’m boycotting the FIFA World Cup 2026. I see no meaning in supporting an event that is being hosted by a country that is terrorizing its own citizens, facilitating genocide in Gaza, bombing schoolchildren in Iran, kidnapping the president of Venezuela, starving people in Cuba, bullying dozens of countries into austerity, sorry, I’ll stop h...

• Post #3569036

  📗 “The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit” by Michael Finkel Very mixed feelings about this book and its existence. It’s the story of a man who successfully lived in the woods for 27 years, as told by the journalist author. Fascinating and fun to read, but in the end it felt like a book filled with mostly unsympathetic people. The ‘hermit’, the people he burgled, the people who caught him, and most of all the author himself all did questionable things that ma...

• Post #3569035

  📗 "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan A classic non-fiction about science and humanity's journey towards being able to gather knowledge about outer space. Although plenty of new things have been added to this knowledge since its original publication, it's still a very interesting read. It doesn't feel that outdated at all. Sagan's excitement for science is infectious. He can make any boring topic sound like a magical tale you've finally gotten the p...

• Post #3569034

  📘 “Talking with Boys” by Tayyba Kanwal This is a collection of short stories, spanning a wide variety of characters and settings, all related to the Pakistani diaspora. I picked this one up not knowing much about it, but the title and cover intrigued me. I was pleasantly surprised. The stories were well-written and I never stopped reading one midway. There’s a tiny bit of overlap between them and a sliver of magical realism here and there, but they mostly read as either contemporary or historic...

• Post #1147969

  📘 "Kallocaïne" by Karin Boye, translated from Swedish into Dutch by Bart Kraamer Available in English as "Kallocain", translated by David McDuff. Although I wish to spread the love of reading all the time, sometimes it's difficult. Especially now, when books feel simultaneously more important than ever in this fascist landscape, but also frivolous to focus on when war is waging. I've also been distracted by a new health issue that sadly requi...

• Post #1034139

  📗 "Over leven: Moed en groei na kindermishandeling en -misbruik" by Valerie Van Peel, Meredith Van Overloop, Anna Defossez & Peter Adriaenssens This book is only available in Dutch, but I think it's an interesting one to mention. The title means 'About life: courage and growth after child abuse' but it contains a wordplay. 'Over leven' means 'about life', but 'overleven' means 'to survive&a...

• Post #765319

  📘 "The Wax Child" by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish into English by Martin Aitken Another IBP longlist entry that has a unique writing style and structure. I'm really enjoying reading all of these creative, non-conventional ways of storytelling. This book is told from the perspective of a consciousness that has come forth from the creation of a doll of a child made out of wax. Based on true events, we indirectly get involved with some of the witch trials that happe...

• Post #765318

  📘 "Women Without Men" by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from Persian into English by Faridoun Farrokh This is a book set in Iran in which we follow a variety of women, all with different backgrounds and circumstances, but who are all suffering due to the misogyny that has deeply shaped their lives. With alternating perspectives and a wonderful tinge of magical realism, these characters start moving towards each other. It becomes a tale of women changing their lives for the bet...

• Post #765317

  📘 "The Deserters" by Mathias Énard, translated from French into English by Charlotte Mandell From all of my IBP longlist reading, this book is my second favorite so far (right behind "The Remembered Soldier"). Its story is almost impossible to recap. There are two narratives. In one we follow a man who's trying to desert from a war, fleeing, when he meets two unexpected individuals on his journey. The point of view warps between him, his thoughts, t...

• Post #765316

  📘 "We Are Green and Trembling" by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from Spanish into English by Robin Myers Another IBP longlist entry. This book was okay for me. It's well-crafted and I enjoyed reading it enough to continue until the end, but I didn't feel that invested or connected to it. It happens, I'm certain this book will be others' favorite. This is a a reimagining of Antonio de Erauso's life with magical realism. He was born...

• Post #619270

  📘 "She Who Remains" by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian into English by Izidora Angel IBP season continues! But unfortunately I didn't like this longlist entry. This is about a young woman in Albania living in a patriarchal culture according to the laws of the Kanun. She becomes the patriarch of her family by committing to being a sworn virgin: women who are regarded as men after they've renounced their womanhood and pledged to remain 'pure&amp...

• Post #619269

  📘 "The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran" by Shida Bazyar, translated from German into English by Ruth Martin This book makes me scratch my head. We follow an Iranian family through two generations, in four (well, five) different decades, going back and forth between Iran and Germany in different contexts. The premise sounds good, but peering deeply into the book, it eventually looked quite hollow. I like it when books take me diving in the wide open sea, drag me to the bottom of t...

• Post #569485

  📘 "The Glacier" by Jeff Wood Another book I wouldn't have looked at twice if it weren't for a personal recommendation on the Fediverse. What a strange one it is. Somewhere between a novel and a screenplay, going forwards and backwards, an inhale and an exhale or an exhale and an inhale -linearity can get off his high horse with this one. This experimental book is very confusing until about 1/3 of the way through and then settles into being only quite confusing...

• Post #569484

  📗 "A Little Annihilation" by Anna Janko, translated from Polish into English by Philip Boehm The news is making writing about books difficult at the moment. But here's an anti-war book I've been reading. I started it in early January and only finished it recently, taking frequent breaks between the heaviest chapters. Still, I doubt I'll read a better non-fiction book this year. This book is the author collecting her mother's memories before she...

• Post #569483

  📘 "The Perfect Circle" by Claudia Petrucci, translated from Italian into English by Anne Milano Appel This title isn't out yet, but will be released in April 2026. I received a digital ARC for it (thanks!). This was a fun and well-structured book. We get to to see two storylines, one set in the 1980s and one in the near future, one going up a spiral staircase and the other coming down, intertwining and neatly coming together. Finishing the book gave the satisfaction o...

• Post #362685

  The LLM discourse on the Fediverse has really irked me the last few days. Refusing to read writing made with the use of LLMs and refusing to give time to writers who use, promote or justify the use of LLMs is not purity culture, it's a boycott. It's a political act of withdrawing my time, resources and support for something that I find deeply morally wrong. It's protest. I have a choice and I refuse. LLMs are exploitative, destructive, biased, mediocre parroting machines. Using the...