To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
we cannot equate hope with idiocy and expect to ever be happy
Tag: death
My Dead Book by Nate Lippens
breathtaking book on death
The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters by Katie Goh
great essay on the end of the world in film & lit
Guyana by Élise Turcotte
a powerful quebecois novel about grief
Apocalypse by DH Lawrence
my domestic holiday begins with unexpected news; Lawrence eviscerates Xianity
Fathoms: The Whale in the World by Rebecca Giggs
on ethics and our species’ lack of them
Thrillers #1 (Hilton, Keene, Hillerman, Friedman)
still in a genre rut i can’t escape
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
powerful stuff on racism, colonialism and botched governmental attempts to move on
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
very little on the book, lots of rage at the slow quietening of June’s global protest movement
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
reading the best of books in the worst of times
Decreation by Anne Carson
was almost sectioned today; read a book that was difficult but perfect
The Final Voicemails by Max Ritvo
poetry by a then dying, now dead, young poet
New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Boxset (SITA), ed. Kwame Dawes & Chris Abani
a boxset of ten powerful chapbooks
Sharks, Death, Surfers by Melissa McCarthy
lovely object with an essay on more than three things
The Poems of Dylan Thomas
welsh poetry, often wonderful, sometimes dry
Eulogy for Josephine Bunyan
the eulogy I read at my grandmother’s funeral in 2014
Subsequent Death by Aaron Kent
who wouldn’t beg for a little more life?
Every Fox Is A Rabid Fox by Harry Gallon
death, dying, dead
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
near death experiences in a bad blog post
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
my thoughts on literature and class
Birthday Post: 30 Things I’ve Done, 30 Things I Haven’t
it’s my 30th birthday
Selected Poems by Federico García Lorca
why I owned but didn’t read this book for five years (anger, depression)
Philosophical Toys by Susana Medina
sad man scotty writes about being sad
Eulogy for Philip Hadley
the speech i read at my grandfather’s funeral
Compass by Mathias Enard
A beautiful novel for an ugly world.
Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba
Digression-free review of some new literary fiction
White Girls by Hilton Als
Off the booze (again), I enjoy a book but despair of life.
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Max Porter Works In Publishing
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
an accurate depiction of the lust and boredom that threatens to overwhelm all of us who aren’t pious, delusional, fuckheads
Suicide Notes by Lewis Parker
Another book of poetry from up-and-coming indie publisher Morbid Books.
The Violet Hour by Katie Roiphe
All Men Must Die, innit?
One of Us by Åsne Seierstad
A beautiful book about a horrible thing.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
In America alone, 281 pounds of pig shit is produced for every one person per year. I don’t know if that’s a lot as I don’t know what a pound is.
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz
Have you ever had a dream? Have you ever dreamt a day, a week, a month, a year? Have youContinue Reading
Recovery by John Berryman
Long before James Frey was breaking Oprah Winfrey’s fragile heart by fictionalising his time in addiction therapy and the behaviourContinue Reading
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Many people have told me that The Waves is Virginia Woolf’s best work. Many people have told me I should readContinue Reading
Shaking Hands with Death by Terry Pratchett
When I was young it was normal practice for supermarkets to fill the spaces around the tills – where peopleContinue Reading
Notes on Suicide by Simon Critchley
Slowly, the land recedes. I am writing this on a ferry, pushing its way across the surprisingly flat Bay (orContinue Reading
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Iran. Who knows much about it? We’ve all seen Argo, we’ve all heard of nuclear weapons, we’re all aware thatContinue Reading
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Lehmann is not a widely-read novelist any more, though in the middle of the 20th-century, she was both popularContinue Reading
Life, End of by Christine Brooke-Rose
Well, this is a rather painfully depressing read. Life, End of was Christine Brooke-Rose’s final novel, one written in herContinue Reading
Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
Both the blurb and the author biography of my 1980s edition of Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf state that thisContinue Reading
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Sticking with middle-brow Scottish literature, I followed Irvine Welsh’s Filth with another dark, scary, psychological story about a disturbed ScottishContinue Reading
The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer
Yes, I read another book by Geoff Dyer and, yes, because it was a structurally complex non-fiction text featuring aContinue Reading
The Poems of Wilfred Owen
In a few weeks, I am driving my father to Paris for a couple of days, and on the wayContinue Reading
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
I’ve read a lot of old religious texts over the past year* and have enjoyed many of them. I’ve readContinue Reading
The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead by David Shields
David Shields’ The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead manages to be simultaneously heart-breakingly depressing whilstContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 