What I'm Reading this Week

some reading recommendations

Hello everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a reading list.

So here’s a list of the books I’ve enjoyed reading this past week. It includes a bit of everything, including non-fiction, 19th century literature, a modern Japanese novella, and more.

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Julian

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What I’ve been reading this week

1: Rembrandt’s Nose: Of Flesh & Spirit in the Master’s Portraits, by Michael Taylor

This short but sleek essay on Rembrandt’s self-portraits encourages us to take a closer look at the way in which Rembrandt portrayed noses. It’s also a wonderful introduction to some of Rembrandt’s lesser known works, and includes beautiful reproductions of his etchings. PS: Unfortunately the book is currently out of print, so if you’d like to read it you may have to look for a used copy. I picked up mine at a second-hand bookstore in LA (with an excellent art section) known as “The Last Bookstore.”

2: Collected Stories, by Guy de Maupassant

I always enjoy reading the “Everyman Library” editions. They’re not cheap (I recommend getting them used), but they’re beautifully printed and look good on a shelf together. In this case, the translation is also excellent. The book features an excellent selection of both well-known short stories such as ‘The Necklace’, but also features some surprisingly gothic tales, reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe -such as the story “the hand”, about a severed hand that comes back to life, crawling like a spider across the walls. Highly recommend if you like short stories.

3: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 2, by Marcel Proust

I periodically like to revisit Proust for the simple reason that it gives me joy. And so like a favorite movie that you can rewatch countless times, I’m forever revisiting Proust. However, this also means that my experience of reading Proust has become increasingly fragmented, and so this week I decided to read the entirety of volume 2, cover-to-cover, which I had never done before. I chose to read the Penguin edition, as I had only ever read the Moncrieff translation, which -although imperfect- I still cherish. This new translation is more precise, and especially makes Proust’s repeated “mini-essays” on art and aesthetics come through, which made for an enjoyable read. As the title suggests (in the shadow of young girls in flower), we follow the young narrator into early adulthood, and his burgeoning awareness tof his female counterparts and the contradictory emotions they provoke in him. It’s a novel like no other, and I simply cannot recommend it strongly enough.

4: The Factory, by Hiroko Oyamada

This is my first time encountering the work of Japanese author Hiroko Oyamada. Her first three novels have been somewhat of a literary sensation in Japan (or so I’m told), winning several prestigious literary awards. The Factory is a short, modernist blend with elements of magical realism. Based on her own experience working as a temp worker for an auto-manufacturer, the book tells the increasingly uncanny story of three young employees who find themselves working for a non-descript corporation. As their sense of reality begins to disintegrate they find themselves traversing the unsettled boundaries between work, life, and all that comes in between. If you enjoy Kafka, or the television series Severance, you’ll likely enjoy this. Ps: I didn’t really like the cover art of the edition I picked up, so I’m posting an alternate version here, which I think is much more interesting. And yes, the birds definitely feature in the story.

5: Heart Lamp: selected stories, by Banu Mushtaq (translated by Deepa Bhasthi)

This was sent to me by the publisher as an advance copy, so I’m not sure whether or not I’m allowed to ‘review’ it as such. But suffice to say that I’m so grateful to have read these stories. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever read before. For context: Banu Mushtaq is a writer, journalist, lawyer, and activist, who writes in the Kannada Language, spoken primarily in Southwest India. The translator’s notes are very interesting and worth reading in their own right, and helped me situate this book much better in its socio-political context. The stories are critical yet humorous portraits of the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. It examines both the hardships and injustices of gendered social stratification, but always does so in a knowing and gentle way, that goes beyond anything I’d ever encountered. The text is sometimes difficult to read, oftentimes humorous, but above all deeply original and I’m so glad to have read it. The book will be available next month from &Otherstories publishers.

That’s it for this week. I’m starting to pick up steam in my reading, so expect more recommendations next week. Hopefully this will inspire you to pick up a book this week as well and ‘read with me’, as it were.

Julian

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