Reading List June 2026: Part 1

The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, Lidia Jorge, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Annie McDermott. This is a Portuguese novel that takes place in Valmares, a fictional town along the Algarve coastline. It portrays two rival families: the owners of the town’s previous canning factory (the Leandro family) and working class immigrants from Cape Verde (the Matas family) who now reside in the abandoned factory. The main character Milene is a Leandro and her suitor, Antonino, is a Matas. It is a slow moving novel but still quite good. I became impatient with Milene’s slow decision making but the behavior fit her character well and as the novel developed I enjoyed her introspective tendencies and freewheeling spirit. While a lot of the story centers around the developing romance between these two characters, Jorge also explores postcolonial memory and consequences, racial antagonism, economic divisions, and the nature of evil. The novel also includes a strong sense of place, from the placement of the factory near the coast, to Milene’s inherited isolated home, from the Matas matriarch longing for Cape Verde to the Leandro’s desire to develop the property. Overall, an enjoyable read.

How The Wind Whistling in the Cranes informs my writing.

The novel’s sense of place is outstanding, something I often neglect in my stories. While setting is important in my writing, such as in my short stories Bluebird (a school bus) and Sorting Through Clams (a clamming boat), they could have been stronger had I been clearer about the importance of those places in the development of my characters. Jorge does that really well.

Jorge explores the nature of evil (something I am studying now) in her novel and I appreciate how she wove it into daily conversations and internal thoughts, rather than a blatant exposition about evil. It is masterfully done and nicely parceled out throughout the novel. It is what I am attempting with the novel I am currently writing and I will revisit Jorge’s success in implementing this skill.

Check out my stories in my collection Not So You’d Notice available at Amazon. Let me know how sense of place is used in Bluebird and Sorting Through Clams.

Reading List May 2026

·      The Extinction of Irene Rey, Jennifer Croft. Fun novel centered on a cult-like group of translators representing different languages gathered together to translate their beloved author’s newest manuscript. Explores various extinction events from the smallest animals to large societies, including the extinction of particular human behaviors and preferences. As the translators struggle to understand their separate relationships with their author a mystery unfolds and drives the plot of the novel. Really nice exploration of identity and group personalities and our tendency to overlook flaws in people we admire.

·      Break It Down: Stories, Lydia Davis. The copy I read is part of Davis’ giant The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis: I plan on reading each collection separately between some other works. These are quite short stories, there are 34 here, exploring the inner workings of their characters. I especially like the theme of ‘breaking it down’ where the characters analyze a situation to find meaning. Great narrative style and overall enjoyable reading.

·      A Sunny Place for Shady People, Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell. The latest short story collection from Enriquez (Argentina) with her usual focus on horror. These stories are well-written and address interesting themes, such as responses to trauma and our relationship to the dead, and are populated with ghosts and hauntings. I appreciate the art of her storytelling but in the end the style does not appeal to me.

·      James, Percival Everett. A great retelling of James’ story, from Huckleberry Finn, from his point of view. Completely engrossing tale as James discovers his own identity after being oppressed as a slave and a black man. Essential reading when considering race relations in the United States and elsewhere.

·      The Place of Shells, Mai Ishizawa, translated by Polly Barton. A novel investigating memory and the role of the past in our daily lives. I especially enjoyed Ishizawa’s discussion of masks and layers of multiple masks we wear, as well as the idea that memories and places wear masks too. The novel unfolds as a sort of stripping off of each character’s masks.

·      Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. It was certainly worth my time and energy to read this novel a second time. Dead bodies, human and animal, frequently appear and the protagonist Janina, a beautifully developed character, gets involved in solving who is doing the murdering. A wonderful exploration of our relationship to the natural world, the origin of gentleness and cruelty, and the role of anger in addressing the wrongs of the world. Incredible read from an outstanding Polish author.

·      The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead. This is a completely enjoyable and intriguing novel. Centered in the black boy’s section of a reform home Whitehead explores brutality, hatred, and the exerted effort by many to thwart the progress of well-meaning individuals. One of my favorite lines, applicable to the perpetrators in the novel as well as those in our current administration is: ‘There was no higher system guiding Nickel’s brutality, merely an indiscriminate spite, one that had nothing to do with people.’ The ending of the novel was superb and brilliantly written.

Reading List April 2026

·       United, Cory Booker. A memoir covering Booker’s early social and political development with a cast of inspirational activists. His focus in on responsibility towards and connection with others. While the concept of empathy is taking a bruising these days, Booker applauds it and encourages it as a mainframe of ethical living. He acknowledges the privileges and opportunities he was granted simply by being born in the right place and the right time and suggests the concept of paying it forward as a means of paying the debts accrued from receiving these gifts. While I remain a cynic as far as how effective kindness can be in today’s toxic relational climate, I support living a life based on kindness in opposition to cruelty and self-centeredness, which is a main theme throughout this book.

·      A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley. This novel was recommended to me by a friend and it sat on my shelf for years before I finally got around to reading it this month. It fits well alongside books by Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. The main character, soured by life and alcoholism at an early age, splits his time between mental hospital stays and making a mess of his life and relations. Fairly routine situations albeit with a host of keen observations, my favorite being the following where the narrator is discussing the aggressors in World War II: ‘…my brother would in no time at all be in a rather ludicrous uniform of his own, with a few million other Americans called upon to pay the heavy toll for having failed to recognize insanity for the pernicious evil it is.’

·      Natural History, Carlos Fonseca, translated by Megan McDowell. Natural History is a novel with a wide cast of characters and narrative points of view. The story encompasses art and science, politics and religion and explores the theme of identity, specifically repetition, camouflage, anonymity, and the masks we wear. Three related story lines, and perhaps a few minor ones, intersect in this wonderfully complex and engaging novel.

·      White Nights, Urszula Honek, translated by Kate Webster. A short story collection out of Poland that deals with a cast of characters surrounded by and enmeshed in death. I found the subject matter and the harsh living conditions described engaging, as well as the plight of the characters as they searched for a reason to go on living and a way out of their dismal environment. The best story in the collection is Hanna where the main character, in explaining the behavior of those around her, states “they’re not consumed by sorrow in a single moment, but throughout their lives…” Through somber and bleak prose these stories speak to the difficulty in rising above stark surroundings and fighting against ever-present brutality.

·      Surrender, Brian O’Hare. A collection of short stories with the Marines and soldiers at war as the backdrop for O’Hare’s exploration of what defines a man in America. A nice addition to my research into gentleness, the recurring cast of characters in these stories struggle with generational definitions of masculinity as they forge their own paths and make similar, sometimes unique mistakes of their own. Well worth reading while Trump and Hegseth push an aggressive war in Iran along with their ‘macho’ posing.

·      The Power of Words, Simone Weil, translated by Richard Rees and Arthur Wills. A powerful set of philosophical essays addressing the emptiness of words in social and political discourse. She suggests ways around this problem presenting what she finds are the ethics which should be guiding our lives. Incredibly topical arguments considering how the current administration hurls empty words and phrases at us (except for the inherent cruelty which lies behind those words and phrases).

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.

Solar Bones: Mike McCormack

This is the first I have read Mike McCormack and I am quite happy I learned about this exceptional one sentence novel. The story involves the civil engineer Marcus Conway as he waits for hours in his kitchen for his wife to return home. His reflections on his family, his community and his entire life unfold in a tidy stream of consciousness narrative which he envisions as a “memorial arc which curves from childhood to the present moment.” I enjoyed the way Conway’s engineering worldview allows him to deconstruct his world to ultimately discover the “harmonic order which underlay everyone and everything.”

The novel opens with the noontime ringing of the local Angelus Bell and introduces the entry of the wider world into Conway’s ruminations. The scene immediately put me in mind of the ringing bells throughout Krasznahorkai’s novel Satantango and mirrors a similar apocalyptic vision, though much more hopeful in the present novel. It did, however, set my mood for the reading and I could hear the Angelus Bell ringing on every page, perhaps calling folks to take stock of their lives and the values we choose to uphold.

I will read more McCormack based on how good this novel is, starting with his two short story collections. Such a pleasure becoming aware of this Irish author.

Jeferson Tenório: The Dark Side of Skin

This incredible novel, translated by Bruno Dantas Lobato and published by Charco Press, explores racial relations in Brazil. Though the black experience in Brazil is distinct from that in America I often found it uncanny how similar the situation seemed: the story could easily have unfolded in any-city USA.

The second person narrative is the ‘invented truth’ or the invented ‘memory of you’ as the narrator grieves the death of his father. Along the way the story deals primarily with systemic racism but also with family dynamics, hurt people and their search for happiness, and the daily struggle of walking out the door each morning. The characters attempt to love and be loved, some seriously challenged by their shortcomings, but for me they remained sympathetic.

Though a bleak and sobering story, I found it engaging and challenging, compassionate and frustrated. A wonderful depiction of the often damaging patterns we encounter in ourselves and in society. Highly recommended.

Tom Drury: The End of Vandalism

There is a scene near the conclusion of ‘The End of Vandalism’ where a character who owns a campground is explaining to an engineer about the meandering path to the lake. He had complained that it should have been built straight. She claimed she thought it was straight. That is an apt metaphor for how I see this engaging novel unfolding. Short on plot but abounding in stories of the people living in the fictional rural-American Grouse County. Characters who see their lives as heading straight but actually meandering through highs and lows, good times and bad. The stories accumulate to paint a heartbreaking narrative of lifelong efforts to find a bit of happiness.

An aspect of the novel I particularly enjoyed was Drury’s abundant use of music, with liberal sprinkling of musician names, song titles and lyrics. The characters were steeped in music and albums and the CD appeared near the end of the novel, albeit with only one character: most others missed out on that questionable technological breakthrough. Another aspect I enjoyed was the slow decay of the rural county, its towns, and the quality of life of its citizens, summed up well by the narrator with ‘services were leaving Grafton like seed from a dandelion.’

As I read the constant vignettes, I imagined a quilt or a web slowly being built. Intersecting lives, chance meetings and near misses, more and more odd decisions and chances taken. Characters lost on their own meandering paths. A very engaging read and a wakeup call to enjoy and appreciate the journey.