Recent Reading

The Intellectual Situation (2024)

The editors of n+1

It's rare for a little magazine to survive its first ten years. It's rarer still for one to survive that long without getting complacent. I'm still not entirely sure how n+1 escaped that fate, but here's the proof it managed the trick.

Recognizing the Stranger (2024)

Isabella Hammad

A short and powerful book about recognition in art, life, and geopolitics—particularly recognition in and of Palestine.

Dayswork (2023)

Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

I've made myself obnoxious pushing this strange and wonderful little book on people. I love it so much.

Past Lives (2024)

V. Joshua Adams

A book of wise, wistful, often hilarious poems by an old friend and editorial comrade-at-arms.

Transcendent Kingdom (2020)

Yaa Gyasi

A(nother) novel about graduate school and religion. How could I resist? (Why would I want to?)

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs (2023)

Kerry Howley

A wild romp through the shadows of the security state, by one of the best feature writers working today.

Independent People (1934)

Halldór Laxness

People told me for years that I had to read this book, and I waited way too long to listen to them. Don't be me.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here (2024)

Jonathan Blitzer

I hate the word "magisterial" in most contexts, but I feel compelled to make an exception for this deeply reported and brilliantly written history of the American immigration crisis.

Help Wanted (2024)

Adelle Waldman

Not many literary novelists manage to write about the working-class precariat without romanticism or condescension. Waldman, who spent time working at a big-box store to research this excellent and entertaining novel, handles the feat with aplomb.

Eternal Sections #1 (2024)

Michell and Dobran, eds.

Worth the price of admission for the Jennifer Moxley elegy to Stephen Rodefer alone. A limited edition: get one before they're gone.

Matrix (2021)

Lauren Groff

I'll follow Groff's prose anywhere it wants to take me, but for someone who spent a lot of time studying medieval mysticism in grad school this was a particular treat.

Under the Skin (2022)

Linda Villarosa

A brilliant, enraging book by America's best reporter on the intersection of racism and medicine.