Welcome to the second installment of my Weekly Notes feature. I’ll keep the welcome letter below for those might be new.
In my Weekly Notes, I will attempt to cull my sundry and myriad thoughts on literature, reading, and teaching into one post, with the hope of garnering meaningful discussion.
I will organize my thoughts as follows:
Airwaves — my impressions of the literary world at the moment. Trends I’m noticing, discussions at the fore, touted authors. An opening monologue of sorts.
On My Nightstand - Thoughts on what I’m currently reading, and what I plan to read next.
Teacher’s Desk - Commentary on the world of literature, and teaching literature.
2025 Book Rankings - I try to keep this to non-classics (those don’t need my hype), and I rank by an imprecise “how much did I enjoy it” and “how likely am I to recommend this book to someone” scale. “Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.” - W.H. Auden
As always, thanks for reading!
Airwaves
Recently, I’ve been embroiled in the act of discovery. Specifically, in discovering the work of a new author. Specifically, Argentine author, Samanta Schweblin.
Seemingly overnight, Schweblin’s name has been blasted over all my literary airwaves. Last month, Schweblin released a short story collection called Good and Evil and Other Stories (translated by Megan McDowell), which undoubtedly was the exigence of all this press, including a rave review of the collection in the New York Times by Joyce Carol Oates, and even a reading and discussion of one of the collection’s stories, “A Fabulous Animal,” by George Saunders on his revered Story Club Substack.
Suffice it to say that, as someone who considers himself to be well-read, I was feeling somewhat ashamed at never having heard of this renowned, extolled, and well-decorated author.
So, naturally, I dove in. I began with “A Fabulous Animal,” and have been working my way through the story collection. I will save my thoughts for my full review, which I will post after finishing the collection, but I am certainly engaged. Her writing is sharp and pointed, psychologically twisting and emotional renting.
But more than the work itself, this discovery and subsequent delving has made me think about the process of discovery itself. What draws us to books, to authors, and just how many of them there are (especially that we have not yet heard of). It’s easy to become overwhelmed, especially when we move outside of the confines of (written in) English literature to the rest of the world. I have posted before about “what I read,” but this is a moving target, and I am constantly finding myself lost along the continuum of breadth and depth: do I continue searching for new authors, or do I dive deeper into the oeuvres of those authors whose works I like? The answer, obviously, is something in the middle, and yet it is still a hard problem to reconcile. I desperately want to read the full bibliographies of authors I have recently read and enjoyed—
, Samantha Harvey, even George Saunders himself — and yet when an author such as Schweblin dominates the space, what can I do but engage?Teacher’s Desk
We just finished Never Let Me Go, and I’m quite pleased with how much my students seemed to enjoy it. This is a mature bunch, and they really seemed to appreciate the emotional depth of the story, its commentary on purpose, duty, and humanity. We also just returned from a field trip on which we held our final book discussion at a park, which was lovely.
I am still working y way through The Great Gatsby in preparation for an upcoming unit for my AP Lang class focused on the American Dream. Gatsby will be our anchor reading, but it will be supplemented with other texts that speak to how the concept of the American Dream has shifted as its locus has diverted away from the hegemony. I have really enjoyed Gatsby upon this re-reading though, much more so than I have in previous reads.
On My Nightstand
As mentioned above, I am almost finished with Samanta Schweblin’s collection Good and Evil and Other Stories. I was slightly underwhelmed at first, but have come to appreciate the collection more and more with each successive story. As a parent, though, there are a couple of stories that knifed me in particularly vulnerable, tender places. If you are a parent, proceed with caution…
Still, because of how much I’ve enjoyed it thus far, I am lifting her novel Fever Dream to the top of my TBR list.
I have also added the story collection, The World Goes On by László Krasznahorkai, the short story collection from the (very) recent Nobel Laureate, which won the 2015 International Booker Prize. The recent award puts him on the list, and I’m glad he has a short story collection, as I have always found short stories to be a good introduction to a new author (which, by the way, ties in to my commentary in “Airwaves” above).
My TBR List (In no particular order)
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
The Ask, Sam Lipsyte
Glaciers, Alexis M. Smith
Flesh, David Szalay
The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton
Possession, A. S. Byatt
The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo
Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively
The Sea, John Banville
Good and Evil and Other Stories, Samanta Schweblin
The World Goes On by László Krasznahorkai
2025 Book Rankings
My favorite books I’ve read this year
On the Calculation of Volume, Vols. 1 & 2, Solvej Balle
The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
Orbital, Samantha Harvey
Is A River Alive?, Robert MacFarlane
Stories of Your Life & Others, Ted Chiang
Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
The Vegetarian, Han Kang
Perfection, Vincent Latronico
The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen
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