Bluets by Maggie Nelson (January)
Ploughshares (January Bonus Round!)
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (February)
Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff (March)
She Comes First by Ian Kerner (March Bonus Round!)
The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei (April)
Black Margins by Sa'Adat Hasan Manto (April Bonus Round!)
The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O'Neill (April Bonus Round!)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (May)
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (May Bonus Round!)See also:
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2017
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2018
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2019
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2020
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2021
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2022
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2024
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2025
"Admit that you have stood in front of a little pile of powdered ultramarine pigment in a glass cup at a museum and felt a stinging desire. But to do what? Liberate it? Purchase it? Ingest it? ... You might want to reach out and disturb the pile of pigment, for example, first staining your fingers with it, then staining the world. You might want to dilute it and swim in it, you might want to rouge your nipples with it, you might want to paint a virgin's robe with it. But still you wouldn't be accessing the blue of it. Not exactly." (page 3)
This was the second piece of Maggie Nelson's I've read (the first was The Argonauts in November 2021, which I loved). It is really just a book about the author's love of the color blue, and related reflections, which I enjoyed!
"Imagine, for example, someone who fucks like a whore. Someone who seems good at it, professional. Someone you can still see fucking you, in the mirror, always in the mirror, crazy fucking about three feet away, in an apartment lit by blue light, never lit by daylight, this person is always fucking you from behind in blue light and you both always seem good at it, dedicated and lost unto it, as if there is no other activity on God's given earth your bodies know how to do except fuck and be fucked like this, in this dim blue light, in this mirror. What do you call someone who fucks this way?" (page 18)
"'We mainly suppose the experiential quality to be an intrinsic quality of the physical object'--this is the so-called systematic illusion of color." (page 20)
"I could drink every single drop of alcohol in my house, which includes the rest of this beer and a bottle of Maker's Mark. I could let myself be fucked mercilessly by many strangers at once, as in my first sexual fantasy: I am sent halfway across the world in a cardboard box with a lot of postage on it. The journey is long and rough and invariably involves much jostling by camels. When I arrive, a tribe of men opens the box under a hot desert sun, and out spills my small body. They are all eager to touch it." (page 53-54)
"I remember, in the eighties, when crack first hit the scene, hearing all kinds of horror stories about how if you smoked it even once, the memory of its unbelievable high would live on in your system forever, and you would thus never again be able to be content without it. I have no idea if this is true, but I will admit that it scared me off the drug." (page 81)
"This man had one tattoo, a navy blue snake, which I liked to watch against the white of his wrist when the rest of his hand had disappeared inside me. He got this tattoo to commemorate the night that all of his snakes died, a winter night in Connecticut when it was so cold and the heat shut off, so he put as many lights as possible against the snakes' cage to try to keep them warm. Then we fell asleep and the heat came back on and the snakes overheated and died." (page 83)
"'As a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable, pain much more painful than we expected.' You don't believe him [Schopenhauer, a philosopher]? He offers this quick test: 'ompare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten.'" (page 87)
Exclusively fiction. Edited by Victor Lavalle.
My favorites were: The Drift by Jac Jemc; Terrierman by Zara Karschay; and The Joke by Joanna Pearson.
Quick murder mystery novel I picked up at Books and Books on a whim. A fun-enough casual read, but nothing to write home about.
Borrowed this book from Abbey Ladwig-Conway at my office, who is really into ancient Egypt (it's her Roman Empire, if you will). The book is a biography of Cleopatra, but in turn also ends up being a bit of a survey of the Ptolemaic Empire from around 100 BC to about 30 BC, and the Roman Empire under Ceasar and then Antony (and Octavian).
The front cover is beautiful.
It was not my favorite piece of nonfiction I've ever read, I must say. But I do feel like I learned a lot about that era of history and that geographic region. One of my main gripes with the book was that the writing style was often pretty hard to follow, and a lot of sentences could have just been written more plainly to communicate the same idea more simply. I think it was written the way it was to come across as beautiful and enchanting prose, but it really just got in the way of understanding the factual content.
I read this book during a difficult time in my work life. Cleopatra's triumphs were motivating. Along those lines, this quote was relatable:
"The art of speaking," it was later said, "depends on much effort, continual study, varied kinds of exercise, long experience, profound wisdom, and unfailing strategic sense." (It was elsewhere noted that this grueling course of study lends itself equally to the court, the stage, or the ravings of a lunatic.)
The book is about redefining the legacy of Cleopatra away from conniving seductress towards astute regional leader. Sure, I'm sold. But everybody can agree that Cleopatra--her lifestyle and empire--was absolutely opulent and elegant and wealthy. That has been interesting to read about as I start to get settled in Miami, which is also a city that prioritizes expensive luxuries and excess. I'm still ambivalent about my relationship to luxury.
The book speaks about the city of Alexandria. The city seems like it was great--metropolitan, historical, filled with culture and depth. I'm sad it no longer exists, I would love to live in a city like the one described in the book.
Mid.
Short Taiwanese speculative fiction about gender, mommy issues, skin care, and consciousness. More sci-fi than I would typically choose for myself. But I read it for a book club with some of my favorite people.
The notes section at the end was fascinating, especially the discussion on punk culture in Taiwan.
Had such a lovely day discussing everything under the sun in the park (including decarcerating disability and the ethics of child-rearing). Was able to pop over to a JVP meeting at the same park right afterwards, which was a really cool moment of feeling like I really belong to the community in Miami.
Aanand Shah (one of the three in my life) traded this book with me for a copy of Bankrolling Empire by Sudev Sheth (see April 2025). Black Margins is a collection of short stories by a classic desi writer. They were interesting and dark.
My favs were The Black Shalwar; For Freedom's Sake; Saha'e; Toba Tek Singh; Ismat Chughtai; Black Margins.
A very dark (and fair) shoutout to the Jain community in one of the short passages from the eponymous Black Margins:
"When the mohalla was raided, some members of the minority community were murdered. The survivors fled. However, one couple took refuge in the basement of their house.
The husband and wife spent two entire days and nights expecting marauders to barge in any second. No one came.
Two more days passed. Their fear of death lessened. Their need for food and water became more pressing.
Four more days passed. By then the couple no longer cared whether they lived or died. They came out of their hideout.
In a feeble voice, the husband tried to attract people's attention, 'We've come to surrender, please kill us.'
His interlocutors were thinking, 'Killing is a sin in our religion.'
They were all Jains.
They consulted among themselves and then handed the couple over to the people of another mohalla for 'appropriate action.'"
Cute palate cleanser graphic novel I read for a book club I've been enjoying in Miami! Tag yourself, I'm the ginger-tea dragon.
Gifted to me by Shayan. A lot of build up for an ending that was interesting but not mind-blowing. I liked that more or less all of the plot threads did ultimately resolve, so it did feel well-crafted in that sense.
I initially felt similarly underwhelmed by Anna Karenina when I read it in January 2017, but the scope of Anna Karenina grew on me more over time. Respectfully, Paul Murray is no Leo Tolstoy, and I don't know if The Bee Sting will grow on me the same way. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining novel that I didn't mind reading.
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (which I had so much fun reading in the original French in April 2018) meets Hamlet by Shakespeare (which I thought was just okay when I read it in October 2024). The NPC nature and casual suicidism of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern really mirrors the same in Vladimir and Estragon from En Attendant Godot. The Tragedians, and their absurd appearances (like out of the barrels on the ship at the end of the play), mirror Pozzo and Lucky.
I've read one other play by Tom Stoppard, Leopoldstadt (which I had a medium time reading in January 2024), and honestly this play felt so different and unrelated.
I thought the play was fine, but I don't think I fully understood the hype. Maybe it would be more fun to see it performed for me to get more out of it (it seems like it has a lot of opportunities for physical comedy).