Milo and the Calf

Tag: books

  • Delillo’s The Silence

    The Silence Don Delillo In recent years, Delillo has turned to short works focused on small groups of people and I’m hear for it. Yes, I loved Underworld and it’s expanses of time and characters, but books like the Silence, focused on the actions of an intimate group of people showcase Delillo’s gift for sketching…

  • Mateer’s Aphrodite Made Me Do It

    Aphrodite Made Me Do ItTrista Mateer I don’t know what to make of this book. I truly don’t. It made some best of the year poetry lists, but it is very much not my thing. That said, I’m a forty something year old CIS white dude and I’m pretty damn sure I am not the…

  • Kaminsky’s Dancing in Odessa

    Dancing in Odessa Ilya Kaminsky Another beautiful collection from the talented Illya Kaminsky, this one more focused on the beauty in the ordinary. I like this collection fine, but Kaminsky’s slightly later work, Deaf Republic, which I read last year is a work of true brilliance and really worth reading. If you’re new to Kaminsky…

  • Weatherford’s Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

    Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern WorldJack Weatherford Before reading this, I knew nothing, like seriously nothing, about Ghengis Khan and the Mongol empire. I knew stereotypes, about rape and pillage, but that was it. This book was a revelation. A fascinating account of how a small nomadic tribe ended up taking over…

  • Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

    Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social UpheavalSaidiya Hartman This is probably my book of the year. An incredible use of the archives to tell the stories of the lives of Black women at the turn of the century. Hartman uses criminal records, photographs, memoirs, to show how precarious and wonderful the lives of…

  • Lanier’s Dawn of the New Everything

    Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality Jaron Lanier I think Jaron Lanier is among the most interesting people in the world. This, his memoir, shows just how fascinating he is. Raised largely by a single father in a house Jaron built himself as a child (yes, really) he has carefully…

  • Carroll’s Bullet Journal

    The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the FutureRyder Carroll I have been keeping a journal off and on since I was a teenager, this year I started experimenting with using a bullet journal and got this book. In basic, Bullet journaling is a system for journaling that is flexible enough…

  • Jacobson’s Pale Horse Rider

    Pale Horse Rider: William Cooper, the Rise of Conspiracy, and the Fall of Trust in AmericaMarc Jacobson William Cooper you have so much to answer for. The author of Behold a Pale Horse, the ur-text of modern American conspiracy theory gave birth to a thousand late night stoned conversations, perpetuated antisemitism, encourage the militia movement,…

  • Wright’s Going Clear

    Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief Lawrence Wright Exhaustive, fascinating dive in the history of Scientology from the brainchild of disturbed novelist and serial grifter L Ron Hubbard to the leadership of disturbed control freak David Miscavige. I found this absorbing from start to finish and I’m still not sure if scientology was…

  • Krakauer’s Eiger Dreams

    Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men And Mountains John Krakauer A collection of Krakauers early works, pre best seller, stuff focused on the world of rock climbing. Some of this is hilarious to read now (have you heard of this new thing called “bouldering”? Its getting kind of popular) and some of it still feel fresh (canyoneering…