Reading List November 2025

·      A Different Kind of Power, Jacinda Ardern. One of several books I am reading to make sense of the lack of gentleness in our world and my desire to see it practiced more widely. Ardern’s memoir discusses what she would later term empathetic leadership during her years as New Zealand’s prime minister. Beautiful story about the power of kindness over brutal and caustic social and political behavior.

·      Overcome Hardness with Softness, Sam Choo. Nonfiction addressing gentleness, flexibility, and calm thought as a kind of strength. More of an overview of this approach than an in-depth analysis but nicely written with encouraging thoughts about the viability of gentleness.

·      Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living, Anne Dufourmantelle, translated by Katherine Payne & Vincent Sallé. Dufourmantelle was a philosopher and psychoanalyst and provided an incredible account of gentleness in this brief text. She cogently discusses the power of gentleness and what a risk it is to live a gentle life: a risk she argues is worth taking. I will return to this amazing work sometime soon.

·      The Man of Feeling, Henry Mackenzie. I chose this book to understand how the author characterized gentleness. Written in the 18th century the story presents the protagonist’s gentleness as a virtue as opposed to the common view of gentleness as a weakness. Overall a decent story of one man’s life spent fiercely clinging to his empathetic approach towards others.

·      The Last Novel, David Markson. The conclusion to the trilogy includes more author notes and reminisces about artists and the creative process. A greater focus on death this time as the Novelist approaches his own. An enjoyable and challenging trilogy.

·      Soft Power, Joseph S Nye. Non-fiction explaining the role soft power plays in successful world politics, with emphasis on the United States. Written in 2004 so the data is outdated and much has changed in the world since then. Still, a useful text in my exploration of gentleness.

·      Good and Evil and Other Stories, Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell. I could read Schweblin stories all day long. This collection explores the things we lose during our lifetimes, from our voices, to loved ones, to valuable relationships. In the end, the characters are left to themselves to understand their losses. Quite supreme!

·      Flesh, David Szalay. Novel which just won the Booker Prize, I read it to see how Szalay presented the male voice, something many critics discussed. Another story of a man’s life, this time growing up in Hungary, emigrating to London, and finally returning to Hungary. The protagonist has very little to say so we learn about him from the situations he falls into, his successes and his failures. One of the main characters says about the protagonist Istvan he “represents a primitive form of masculinity” which I found to be an apt description of the character throughout the text.

Reading List October 2025

·      The Unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses. Another incredible novel from the author of Tender is the Flesh, one of my favorite reads of 2020. This time the story takes place in a dystopian convent ruled over by a cruel male leader and an equally cruel Superior Sister. It is a brutal hierarchical world of women with plenty of abuse at all levels. Great story exploring misogyny, faith, and masochism. Scary how it mirrors our current world.

·      Babel, Gabriel Blackwell. A short story collection attempting to unravel the confusion we experience when we confront ourselves and those around us. Some interesting characters and situations but lacking as a whole.

·      The Return, Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer. Another incredible short story collection from Bolaño. This time along with his regular themes there is a greater focus on death. Wonderful stories!

·      Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. A classic novel and a pleasure to reread as part of my research on book banning for a series of short stories I am working on. Should be required reading for the folks working so tirelessly banning books these days.

·      Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes. Story of an expat couple living their 20’s through 40’s as web designers. They make sense of their lives and attempt to find meaning by procuring the ‘right’ consumer goods only to discover how empty their lives are after an adulthood spent emulating the digital world.

·      The Man Who Cried I Am, John A. Williams. A 1967 novel about a black writer navigating the world of politics and journalism. Wonderful study of mortality and interracial relations, including a vicious government plot to deal with racial problems.  

·      Solito, Javier Zamora. Harrowing memoir about a nine-year-old boy migrating to the USA from El Salvador, including the impressive story about the humanity showed by those who helped him on his way. The author does not include discussion about the pros and cons of migration but rather uses the platform to share the plight of those in the process. Certainly a valuable story to include in those discussions.

Reading List September 2025

·      Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews & Natasha Wimmer. The first of four Bolaño short story collections I plan on rereading. Struggling and failed writers populate these incredible stories. These are downtrodden exiled characters and there is a continual threat of violence which propels the narratives.

·      American Abductions, Mauro Javier Cárdenas. This novel from Ecuador is set in America in the near future but closely resembles the present despite its technological advancements. The novel explores the psychological and physical stress caused by the deportations of Latin Americans living and working in the USA. Frightening but intriguing experimental writing.

·      America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges. Hedges nonfiction book examines what he sees as America’s decline with chapters addressing hate, work, freedom, addiction and more. Sober reading providing an interesting analysis of the main culprit, the corporate state.

·      Vanishing Point, David Markson. A continuation of Markson’s This is Not a Novel with a deeper focus on impending death. Presented as notes Author has collected on index cards mainly about the challenges of creative life. Looking forward to the final novel.

·      Death Takes Me, Christina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker & Robin Meyers. A literary crime narrative out of Mexico involving gendered violence and deeply steeped in an exploration of poetry. Incredible experimental writing.

·      Time: The Present, Tess Slesinger. Selected stories from Slesinger writing from the 1930’s. There are a handful of extremely excellent stories in this collection but overall I was impressed with Slesinger’s exploration of gender relations, worker exploitation, and race politics through her modernist style.

Criminalizing Words: Playing at Cruelty

I first began writing Playing at Cruelty between 2018 and 2019 in response to the executive orders and policies of the presidential administration. I imagined the things that could go wrong in the country with the push to curtail guaranteed freedoms and came up with this story. I reread it this weekend thinking about the current administration’s aggressive assault on freedom of speech and thought the storyline of Playing at Cruelty is not so farfetched. You can read the story in my collection Not So You’d Notice available at Amazon.

Reading List August 2025

·      May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes. An enjoyable novel exploring our inner lives and asking how we manage to survive each day and the challenges that appear. Quite fun to watch the growth of the protagonist.

·      This is Not a Novel, David Markson. A barrage of thoughts about the creative process, creative individuals, death, and including something that could be called a storyline. First in a trilogy. Looking forward to the next two.

·      Cool For America, Andrew Martin. A short story collection with lots of writers, music, booze. and drugs. Some fun along the way but grows weary with repetition.

·      Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, Molière, translated by Maya Slater. Very humorous drama pieces I read as part of research for the hypocrisy story I am currently writing.

·      To Walk Alone in the Crowd, Antonio Muñoz Molina, translated by Guillermo Bleichmar. A nice look at solitude amongst other people. Mostly containing thoughts while walking through cities, it is a cool exploration of mindfulness while exploring the world around us.

·      Oreo, Fran Ross. A great romp through seventies Philadelphia and New York while exploring race and family relations. Written in 1974 but still highly applicable.

·      Show Don’t Tell, Curtis Sittenfeld. Short stories featuring middle-aged characters mining their pasts to understand their current situations.

·      A Sensitive Person, Jachym Topol, translated by Alex Zucker. Always a pleasure to read another Topol novel from the Czech Republic. This one is a wild road novel beginning during an acting tour in Europe and then a return to Prague. Lots of absurd encounters with a cast of characters and explorations of current politics and other concerns.

Debut publication: Not So You'd Notice

My debut story collection is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. It’s been years in the making and it is exciting to see it hit the shelves. Many of the stories have been previously published in outstanding literary journals and are now available in this collection. Several of the stories are new and I would love to hear what you think of them. Here is the book description as listed on Amazon and on the back flap:

Not So You’d Notice book blurb.

I would be honoured for you to read my collection available at Amazon .com and Amazon.de. Feel free to leave a review on Amazon. Happy reading!

June Reading List 2025

These are the eight books I read during the month of June:

·      Witness, Jamel Brinkley. Like his previous short story collection, an awesome and inspiring work exploring the witnesses we are as we negotiate the challenges we face. Beautiful writing!

·      Yoga, Emmanuel Carrère, translated by John Lambert. My first outing with Carrère’s nonfiction. An incredible story about the difficulty of finding inner peace in an unraveling world.

·      Poetics of Relation, Édouard Glissant, translated by Betsy Wing. This nonfiction work pushed my comprehension but I was attracted to his idea of the rhizomatic thought that is the Poetics of Relation. Will give it a second read in search of understanding.

·      Emotional Alchemy, Tara Bennett-Goleman. Another nonfiction for June, a useful guide to using mindfulness to understand and restructure negative thinking and harmful habits.

·      Cosmogony, Lucy Ives. My foray into Ives’ short fiction: just as inventive and enjoyable as her novel Life is Everywhere. Love her style.

·      Steps Under Water, Alicia Kozameh, translated by David E Davis. My second book from this author and as good as the first. Further mining of the impact of repressive regimes on personal and societal lives.

·      Bezoar, Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine. Always a pleasure to read another Nettel collection. Intriguing analysis of bodies and the consciousness which lies within.

·      The Employees, Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken. I avoided this novel for a bit because of its sci-fi label but am glad I finally buckled (NDP rarely fails). Nice investigation into a dehumanising workplace and the question of what actually makes us human.

May Reads 2025

These are the seven books I read during the month of May.

·      The Coming Bad Days, Sarah Bernstein. My second Bernstein novel, after her Study for Obedience. I love her style and the quiet ongoing grind of her words. Can’t wait for more.

·      Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews. An awesome fictional biographical dictionary of right-wing authors.

·      The Coiled Serpent, Camilla Grudova. Fun short story collection with lots of graphic descriptions and great lists everywhere.

·      Life Is Everywhere, Lucy Ives. Incredible novel, my introduction to Ives. Texts within texts within texts. Extremely impressive. Will read more of her work.

·      259 Leaps, The Last Immortal, Alicia Kozameh, translated by Clare Sullivan. This Argentine novel from a former political prisoner deftly explores exile.

·      Berlin, Andris Kupriss, translated by Ian Gwin. Short story collection from Latvia that didn’t really do much for me.

·      Hypocrisy: Moral Fraud and Other Vices, James S. Spiegel. Nonfiction work investigating Christian hypocrisy. Can’t say I agree with the conclusion but it helped my research for a short story.