October Reads
Darkness, the wisdom of spirits & realising why I hate ‘spooky’ reading.
This month created an opportunity to reflect on why intentionally reserving ‘spooky’ books for October is ruining my reading. Last year I tried (for the first time) to read seasonally for October, and I hated it. This year, I put aside a few books I already owned that had spooky-ish tropes. However, I have since come to the conclusion that it is reading these types of books in succession, as opposed to isolation, that is the downfall for my reading.
An occasional eerie book is fabulous. But reading several in succession turns me into an apathetic reader. I am a reader who loves information (however that may look) and trajectories, things that are often absent in this genre. I realised this in reading Restoration and Pedro Páramo in succession - I had already had my ‘fill’. Many readers will be familiar with my dislike of nebulous narrators - something I rely on quite heavily when I am criticising a novel I don’t like. But when I had that thought several times this month, I felt I needed to interrogate it further; that I cannot simply rely, again, on saying I often don’t like nebulous narrators. Instead, I learnt something much more revealing about my ever evolving taste.
This rumination aside, there were some incredible books this month. Most notably I spent over 1,000 pages submerged in the worlds of The Morning Star and The Most Secret Memory of Men which were both incredible.
To see the translated reads from October on Martha’s Map, including authors from Norway, Denmark, Bolivia, Mexico, Senegal and Poland, click here.
For those who are new, buy, borrow, bust is my recommendation key: Buy = I loved this book and highly recommend it. Borrow = I liked this book and think it is worth a read. Bust = I wouldn’t recommend this book from my reading experience.
‘The Morning Star’ by Karl Ove Knausgaard (translated by Martin Aitken)
On a hot August weekend in southern Norway, literature professor Arne and his wife Tove are with their children on holiday. Their friend, Egil, is staying in a cabin nearby. Katherine, a priest, is traveling back from a seminar, but no longer wants to go home. Journalist Jostein is out getting hammered while his wife, Turid, is about to do a night shift on a psychiatric ward. These portraits of mundanity are connected by one, out of this world event; a new star in the sky. They are mesmerised by its presence in the periphery of their anguish. But when a ritual murder is discovered in the forest, and Katherine is asked to lead an empty funeral of a man she’s just met, it is evident a sinister energy is slowly advancing on these peoples lives.
The Morning Star is a challenging story to explain, or evaluate, because it is so many things; combining elements of thriller, horror and portraits of humanity. At its core, it is a philosophical exploration about uncertainty, and how we live among mysteries that can never be answered. While there are several philosophical segments throughout the novel, and meditations on humanity’s ever evolving relationship with death, The Morning Star ultimately provokes how we, the reader, think about death.
There are a variety of ways this book can be interpreted, from the eruption of a parallel universe, to the concept that when we die, we are at the hands of the complete unknown. It is this ambiguity that makes this novel uneasy to read. Knausgaard never describes the menacing energy. He merely lets its unexplainable horror consistently grow. It creates a palpably uncomfortable atmosphere that you can’t quite put your finger on. The unsettling addictive supernatural messaging is juxtaposed by the mundane lives within this town. They are in many ways, just like us; normal people struggling to grapple with the complexities of their own personal lives, existing within a world where a much more formidable unknown is on its way.
Knausgaard’s character portraits are vividly honest. We encounter several protagonists, some more consistently than others. While the inconsistencies of characters’ occurrence are frustrating, those most frequent are engrossingly flawed individuals, with lives full of uncertainty. Knausgaard submerges us into their consciousness where we witness them trying to seek meaning in every moment, trying to understand if they are making the ‘right’ decisions. Some characters certainly are making the wrong decisions, and it is within these characters that perhaps a false sense of security emerges, believing we know what comes next. We start to think of this world within the realm of logic as a response to becoming so familiar with characters who are so human.
Only, we don’t know what’s coming next in The Morning Star, because we are contending with an unknown. Knausgaard’s prose are sickeningly suspenseful, and compulsively readable. A general uneasy meditation, driven by a macabre undercurrent, results in this book becoming completely engrossing. While we are enamoured by the lives of the characters, Knausgaard consistently reminds us that we don’t know what’s coming next; in the story, or our eternal resting place.
It is rarely possible to declare that within a six hundred and sixty six page novel, every word is well chosen and necessary. There does come a point where a story of this magnitude feels bloated, teetering on the potential to become tiresome. Occasional moments within this novel felt aimless, but they were quickly forgiven by the next page serving a more compelling character study. In the least spoiler way possible, the ending left something to be desired. Momentum was lost in exchange for an impassioned rambling that while had elements of curiosity, was ultimately bloated. While in the moment the open ended conclusion infuriated me, ultimately the ambiguity will stand the test of time. Knausgaard wants the suspense of the tale to live on, past the page.
The Morning Star is not a perfect novel, but it is undeniably one of the most memorably captivating and thought provoking ones I have read in a while. This was my first Knausgaard and I am enamoured with how he writes, and the fact that every book he produces is seemingly no less than five hundred pages. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys suspense and contemplates the fact that the only certainty in life, our death, is something we know nothing about. This is a buy! I was reading it at every possible moment, completely enveloped into Knausgaard’s madness for a week - it was wonderfully exhilarating,
For those who have read Knausgaard before, how should I be approaching the Morgenstjernen Series? Does it need to be read in order? Should I read them randomly? Please let me know. However, I do love organisation and order so maybe I will read The Wolves of Eternity next?
If you have the slightest desire to read this series (you should - it’s great), or have only read Vol I, I would not recommend you read this review because it spoils the suspense that this series relies on.
If you’re curious in what the series entails you can read my review of Vol I (spoiler safe & enticing) or my review of Vol 2. This review is for those who have already read Volume I & II.
‘On The Calculation of Volume III’ by Solvej Balle (translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russel)
Volume III begins where Volume II left off - by introducing us to Henry Dale who is, just like Tara, stuck in the eighteenth of November. Balle begins by tracing how two people, in the same city, who are living the same day, managed to find each other. While one could assume this might be an easy feat, by just noticing something which is out of step with the other 1,143 days, Balle suggests it is not. How do you notice something that you’re not looking for?
This question threads throughout the novel as we watch Tara’s observations evolve. However this time, someone offers a counter. While Tara romantically chases the seasons, investigates Roman history and walks round listening for whether sounds make sense, Henry offers a pessimistic and realistic perspective. Though Tara believes there is a solution, Henry could not disagree more. While she focuses on patterns, Henry contemplates more pragmatically the realities of them dying in the loop, of never being able to ‘go back’. Tara is unimpressed that her romantic optimism is being countered by someone who thinks she might never be with Thomas again. What is most compelling is that through observing Tara through the lens of others, her characterisation deepens. She is contextualised as an incredibly obsessive individual about the order of things, seeking patterns which ‘make sense’ and those that do not.
Tara’s meditations in Volume I are compelling in their repetition and trance of mundanity. This continues into Volume II, but consistently changing the environment prevents it becoming stale. Volume III opens up with the same Tara, but she is being countered by an alternate perspective, which makes all the difference. The world of the eighteenth of November is opened up in a way readers may have wanted and dreaded. Tara is not alone, and it is simultaneously refreshing and unsettling to be given a different outlook because it roots the time loop into something more sinister. The lens moves from individualistic to communal, and in turn, asks a bigger question about what kind of world they are living in.
In my review of Volume II, I suggested future volumes might comment more on other loopers’ relationship to consumption. While this theme evolves, Balle imbeds something into this world much more tantalising; context. Tara makes a reference to the disintegration of modern society, alluding to a collapse of the Western world. This is a pivotal moment in the series, because it brings up the question as to whether this universe is situated in the distant or perhaps very near future. Is it a reference to our current political climate? Perhaps even covid? It reinforces previous reflections about how Balle has created a universe where the extractive nature of humanity can be analysed on an intimately personal scale. It asks, is time collapsing because humanity’s relationship to the planet has caused it to malfunction?
Balle is slowly, but tantalisingly, opening up a sinister world around Tara. With each Volume, the scope widens and the reader is forced to reckon with why they are stuck in time. This scope removes the individualistic lens Tara interrogates in Volume I, where she contemplates on whether it is because of something she did personally. Instead, it comments on our collective humanity and begins to meditate on how we shape the lives of others. No longer is Tara lost in time alone - she is lost in time with others, and perhaps therein lies something else Balle wants to explore - that we cannot problem solve individually, worthwhile change requires collective action.
Volume III is the best yet because we are getting that context, and those alternative points of views that we have been yearning for. Despite these revelations, there still remains so much suspense and mystery, maintaining this addictive phenomenon that On The Calculation of Volume has garnered. Balle is also a master at cliff hanger endings - each volume tees up the next impeccably. I don’t want to wish away time, but May 2026 cannot come soon enough. While it is redundant to recommend any of these volumes as standalone novels, this series continues to be a buy.
‘You Glow In The Dark’ by Liliana Colanzi (translated by Chris Andrews)
You Glow In The Dark is a collection of seven stories set in a fictional Latin America, poisoned by human greed in near-future landscapes. They tell the tales of communities both ordinary and uncanny during the fallout of a nuclear disaster. A mix of out of this world and familiar landscapes attempt to create a collection which is vividly mesmerising.
Unfortunately, this was far from achieved. This collection lacked a centre, a commonality that threaded them together to create a cohesive collection of stories. While a few stories were good, several felt out of place. They lacked the relevance and tightness that short stories so desperately require to be simultaneously singular and integrated. At the end of the collection, after becoming increasingly more confused with every story, there was a note that said the collection is based on the Gioânia radiological accident of 1987 - an accident that resulted in radioactive contamination of 249 people and 4 deaths.
It is a disservice to the collection that this note was at the end, rather than the beginning. While this would not have alleviated all the issues the collection had, it would have given some context which would have only made the collection stronger. The first story, The Cave, was a beautiful exploration of time passing, humanity evolving and changing throughout history. There was a remarkable point where you realise that Colanzi has gone beyond the present day, and taken us into the uncharged territory of the future. But every story thereafter never reached the emotive pull of this story again.
Many of the stories in this collection didn’t have that tight, impactful clarity that short stories need to excel. They were lacking in any emotional depth. It was a struggle to feel moved, or remotely invested, in the stories at hand. I have little else to say here - this collection was not good. It had the potential to be quite extraordinary, especially because of the inspiration of the Gioânia accident. Alas, it consistently failed to reach any sort of momentum.
Unsurprisingly, I would call this a bust, I would not recommend it! This was the first book to be published by the new publishing house based in London, Akoya. Despite not enjoying this collection, Akoya’s 2026 catalogue looks great - perhaps the first pancake theory is applicable here. Specifically, The Oldest Bitch Alive which is about the meaning of life and terminal illness from the perspective of a french bulldog, and Global Sex: What Sex Workers Know About Love and Capitalism - both sound incredibly appealing to me.
‘Restoration’ by Ave Barrera (translated by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers)
My first introduction to Barrera was through her novel The Forgery, which I read last year. The Forgery was the most uncomfortable, suspenseful writing I have ever encountered (and remains so to this day), so I had very specific expectations for Restoration. Ultimately it was a shock to read this, because while there are similarities, what is explored in this novel is entirely different. Instead of relying on the ominous horror of the unknown like in Restoration is based on a familiar horror; misogyny.
Jasmina has been hired by Zuri, a boy she is partially involved with, to restore his family home; an abandoned mansion where a great artist once lived. Zuri leaves her in the house alone but before he leaves, he swears to her to not open a mysterious locked door. Enamoured by the prospect of getting to work on a whole house, Jasmina starts cleaning and restoring, and forgets about the locked door. As she works, she disturbs the lives of the women who came before her. Their stories start to overlap with her own, and Jasmina finds herself learning about the forgotten women of the past who inhabited this house.
‘We all know what happens in stories to women who open doors that men have forbidden them from opening’ 1
Restoration is a tale about all that women have suffered and endured over the course of humanity. The house vibrates with tales of misogynistic abuse, recurring more and more frequently as Jasmina continues to remove layers. As the novel progresses, it becomes harder to decipher who is who, and clarify which generation experienced what abuse, and where Jasmina’s narrative fits within these harrowing tales. They are connected by being subjected to violence by the men they trust, those closest to them.
Little imagination is needed to envisage the types of lives these women experienced at the hands of Zuri’s ancestors. There is an emerging implication that the apple does not fall far from the tree, that Jasmina might be susceptible to suffering the same fate at the hands of Zuri. Barrera’s prose is intoxicatingly violent and eerie. More unsettling tales from the past are thrusted onto the page as the novel progresses, until it is impossible to look away, and to understand the probabilities of Jasmina’s fate. A fever dream emerges where past and present bleed together; rendering you unable to decipher where one ends and the other begins.
The increasing confusion as to whose narrative is which lends itself to creating an incredibly tense atmosphere. Artistically I think this narrative structure worked. I understand that it is the whole point of the novel to not be able to decipher which woman is talking, to represent a culture towards women that has maintained for centuries. Personally, I found it marginally tiresome to read. I admired the approach and disliked reading it.
Restoration is not a ghost story that stays in the confines of the tale - it bleeds into our world, the one we know. I appreciate this novel the more distance I have from it, which perhaps suggests that my expectation for the novel to be like her previous affected my experience a lot! I would call this a borrow. Though I felt slightly lethargic as the symbolism and layers of the novel grew, and the extensive descriptions of the art of restoration, I thought the ending was brilliant. I would recommend this if you enjoy the exploration of generations of women looking out for each other and the idea that the walls of a building can talk.
‘Pedro Páramo’ by Juan Rulfo (translated by Douglas J Weatherford)
Juan Preciado swears to his dying mother that he will find his father, Pedro Paramo, whom they fled from many years ago. So he sets out to Comala, a town alive with the shadows of the past - populated by memories and hallucinations. The streets echo with tormented voices sharing the secrets of the past and the tyranny of the Paramo family. The blurb describes these streets as ‘barren and broken down’ but the only thing that is barren and broken down is this story.
Pedro Páramo is a classic, praised as one of the most influential writers and pieces of work in Latin America. I love almost all work that comes out of Latin America - some of my favourite books are from there - but not this one. I feel compelled to be incredibly transparent with you here and confess I barely have anything to say about this novel. The prose is atmospheric and unsettling, but the structure of the novel was completely lost me. On top of that, we lose Juan, our protagonist, half way through, without any given explanation. The fragmented narrative is so splintered and directionless that all at no point did I manage to conceptualise, or understand, the wider story.
As I sit here writing this, I cannot conjure up anything more to say - which is unlike me, someone who is notoriously passionate and unconcise. The jury is still out on whether I just wasn’t in the ‘right mood’, or whether this book just isn’t for me. I think it might be the latter, I do not have a successful track record with splintered narration.
I would not recommend this and call it a bust. Jessie Lethaby’s review of this novel is much more forgiving than mine, so I would recommend it if you are interested in a different perspective.
‘The Most Secret Memory of Men’ by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (translated by Lara Vergnaud)
In Paris, 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a book titled The Labyrinth of Inhumanity. Faye is immediately enamoured, reading the book from cover to cover multiple times. The author, T.C Elimane is a mystery. No one knows what happened to him and The Labyrinth of Inhumanity deliberately fell out of print after Elimane was accused of plagiarism; his reputation destroyed by critics. Faye happens to be reading one of the last copies left. Obsessed with discovering the truth about T.C Elimane, Faye follows the author’s labyrinth trail around the world to try and get to the bottom of one of what he considers to be one the greatest literary tragedies of all time.
T.C Elimane is an enigma that Faye idolises, adores and envies. He is an ubiquitous figure in Faye’s life, whose mystic only grows every time Faye uncovers something about him. All Faye knows is that T.C Elimane was educated in a military school in colonised Senegal and was such a prestigious student that he got sent to Paris to finish his education. Here he was gawked at, infantilised and feared - a Black boy who was smarter than anyone else. He wrote The Labyrinth of Inhumanity while in Paris but it was quickly obliterated by critics who said his work was almost entirely plagiarised. As a result, T.C Elimane faded into obscurity out of fear and shame.
This tale curated by Sarr is based on the true story of Yambo Ouologuem, a Malian writer whose first novel Bound to Violence, published in 1968, won the Prix Renaudot, a prestigious French literary award. Despite being well received by readers, Ouologuem was controversially accused of plagiarism. Graham Greene filed a lawsuit against him and Bound to Violence was immediately pulled from the shelves and fell out of print. As a result of the attack of the Western press, Ouologuem returned to Mali and lived the rest of his life as a recluse.
Thus, The Most Secret Memory of Men is evidently an ode, or perhaps more explicitly a way to honour Ouologuem. This novel is a hypnotisingly electric tale about the intersection between race, literature and colonialism. Sarr is asking who gets to create great literature, and more importantly, who gets to decide what is great literature?
T.C Elimane appears to have failed to measure up to the Western cultural standards of great literature. He was educated by a colonial power to evolve into, by their standards, a miracle Black boy. He spends his childhood trying to succeed in this specific system, while being aware that the undercurrents of this school, of Senegal being colonised, is France’s mission to ‘civilise’ them. As an adult, he does not become who they want him to be, he does not follow the repertoire of what they deem to be great literature - that follows the guard rails of the white man. After being idolised, he is criminalised and subjected to a racist press campaign. T.C Elimane can only be as great as the white people define him to be, his intelligence, and by extension his existence, is only credible if he conforms.
Sarr’s immersive commentary on how colonialism has shaped literature was profound. My love for this novel continues to grow with every passing day since I put it down. Faye’s hunt for T.C Elimane and the truth about him is propulsive, with each layer uncovered, more complexities are revealed. Sarr interrogates all the facets of T.C Elimane’s life, from the generations that came before him to his conception, upbringing and later life. Part generational story, part investigative thriller and part literary commentary, The Most Secret Memory of Men is a portrait of a Black man’s inability to succeed under the structures of our world.
This novel is hypnotisingly brilliant. I was absolutely hooked by Sarr’s prose and the mystery surrounding T.C Eliamne. This is a piece of fiction that deftly interrogates the many aspects of what makes great art. Who is given permission to create this art, and who has the deciding vote on if it’s good or not? This is the eternal question that persists today, especially within literature. Books which are praised critically do not necessarily translate to commercial success, and visa versa. On top of that, narrative and story telling tropes that are taught are ‘right’ or ‘good’ are so often the classics written by white men. We know this is not the case, and it is always eye-opening to read literature that rejects those tropes so fiercely.
While reading this, I had a phrase my friend Tembe Denton-Hurst so often says to me when describing a book; ‘the storytelling is so Black’. By that, she often means whatever she has read is rejecting the traditional notions of narrative structure and storytelling. Therefore, I interpret T.C Elimane’s The Labyrinth of Inhumanity to be a novel that would be considered by Tembe as ‘so Black’ - so Black it terrified white critics and they used their power to destroy it.
This is one of my favourite reads of the year. I loved everything Sarr tackled in this novel, from his characterisation, pacing and prose to the themes of race, colonialism and literature. I think I may have found a new favourite author in Sarr and it is on the top of my to-do list to acquire another one of his books immediately - if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.
I am desperate to get my hands on Bound to Violence and read the inspiration for this novel. Obviously, this is a buy. It was unbelievable. I would recommend this to anyone who loves mysteries, thrillers and tales which follow the rise, and fall, of someone’s life. In many ways, it also reminded me of Biography of X - both are wild goose chases of individuals whose legendary status exceeds their mortal bodies. X and T.C Elimane are both shrouded in an impenetrable mystery. If you liked it, I would very heavily recommend reading The Most Secret Memory of Men too!
‘House of Day, House of Night’ by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Llyod-Jones)
Tokarczuk is renowned for her fiction celebrating the natural world, aging women and mythology - and House of Day, House of Night is no less. Set in Nowa Ruda, in Lower Silesia, ‘a town built in valleys, on slopes and hilltops, of small bridges [...] secret passageways, blind alleys and mysterious symbols above the front doors of houses’. Tokarczuk describes it as a ‘fragment town’ of Polish, Czech and German heritage that sits a dozen meters from the Czech border. It is a town that carries history, a town full of Gothic architecture and forests full of vestiges of a time when the region belonged to another country, before the communist regime collapsed in 1989.
This is the landscape in which House of Day, House of Night is set - a landscape that is a mosaic of past cultures and traditions. The narrator, alongside her neighbour Marta, accumulates stories of the hamlet, from the history of its foundation to the lives of Saints, recipes of the past and gossip. The result is a mythical and anthropological tale about the history of land.
Written in 1998, before her more recent works of Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead and The Empusium (which I have both read), House of Day, House of Night reads almost as a precursor to these worlds. This novel is propelled by the whisperings of the past and the mysterious energy of the natural world. It explores the harmony of all living creatures, a slower, vanishing way of life and the mythology that shapes the land you walk across. While the narrator and Marta are our anchors to the present day, the novel frequently drifts off into other tales - about mushrooms, saints and condemned people of the past.
The present day narrative with Marta was the most enjoyable to read, pulsing with political and philosophical themes. Through these women Tokarczuk explores gendered language, what ‘old age’ means and the modern world’s relationship with transformation - but only if it is propulsive. It is in these moments where Tokarczuk shines with her unwaveringly incisive perspective on what she deems a life worth living.
In her exploration of aging women, Tokcarzuk continually suggests their individualistic brilliance as a counter to their devaluation in our society. How Tokcarzuk approaches contemplating our existence and our relationship to the natural world always astounds me. Reading her novels makes me feel so small in a way that is so valuable - she places us not just within a fictional story, but situates us within the entire history of humanity. Tokcarzuk revels in reminding us that we are merely alive for a brief moment in time.
‘I told Marta that each of us has two homes - one actual home with a fixed location in time and space, and a second that is infinite, with no address and no chance of being immortalised in architectural plans - and that we live in both of them simultaneously’2
Praise for Tokcarzuk aside, there was a flow to this book that was hard to settle in. The novel consists of vignettes which enmesh together to create a mosaic of stories of the hamlet. While the narrator and Marta’s stories were always compellingly emotive, this was not always the case for the others. The sense of place - of the land, community and nature - was consistently much stronger within the protagonist’s stories, whereas others sometimes felt disconnected. Though they managed to encapsulate Tokcarzuk’s intention to explore the varied history of Nowa Ruda, they were mostly unsuccessful in adding depth to the characterisation of the hamlet.
While reading I was desperate to get back to the narrator, to read about the small intimacies they share in their day to day lives and the wigs Marta makes in her basement - this was the aspect of the novel that kept me reading. I wished for more exploration about them, less longer prolix’s about bizarre male saints. Despite a dislike for this style, it nevertheless achieves the emphasis on reminding the reader of the brief, complex lives that will follow after we are gone.
I would recommend this to preexisting fans of Tokcarzuk and lovers of astrology, mythology and historical explorations of religious figures. I would call it a borrow! I think I would remain to say that Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead is my favourite Tokcarzuk. Although, The Empusium continues to grow on me in the more time that passes since I read it.
And that concludes my October Reads! My favourite books of the month were ‘On The Calculation of Vol III’ and ‘The Most Secret Memory of Men’.
My first read of November is ‘Other People’ by Celia Dale. I read my first Dale last year and loved it. ‘A Spring of Love’ made it on to my favourite reads of 2024 list and I still stand by that today. Other People, like A Spring of Love, was first published in 1964. Dale’s oeuvre is being resuscitated by Daunt Book Publishing and I am a big fan. No one writes suspense like Dale, and while I am more familiar with her tropes now, I am still enjoying it.
End Notes
✿ After signalling my love for the Cercador Prize last month, another translated prize, The Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize shared their 2024 shortlist in October. I have only read one; Living Things by Munir Hachemi, which I highly recommend. I have a copy of hungry for what which I wanted to read in October but didn’t manage to - hopefully I will remedy that soon!
✣ The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation also came out this month and hungry for what is listed again here, alongside Too Great A Sky which I have raved about multiple times.
♥︎ Thank you to everyone who filled in my survey last month! I have loved reading the comments you left and am fascinated by the data! The biggest take away from the survey is that over 200 of you want a book club… so… I’ll start workshopping that into becoming a reality. For those that are interested, the majority of you would like it to be bi-monthly book club with a mix of translated and non translated books. There is still time to fill out the survey if you so wish to (click here).
✎ In October I went to the Kerry James Marshall exhibition & I loved it - I highly recommend!
Let me know your thoughts:
☀︎ What have you read and enjoyed in October? Any recommendations for me?
☆ Have you read any of these books? Would you like to?
❊ Has anyone made a list of ‘10 before the end’ (the 10 books you would like to read before the end of the year)? Or perhaps 1 or 2 books you’d like to read before the end of the year? I tried to but I am allergic to making reading lists - as soon as I do, it makes me categorically not want to read the books.
Thank you, as always, for being a reader! I love you!
Happy Reading,
Martha
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Catch up on what you might have missed:
And what I was reading in October 2024; (objectively a ‘bad’ month but my review of Intermezzo is one of my favourite reviews of all time)
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p.124 in Restoration by Ave Barrera
p.126 in House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokcarzuk
The Most Secret Memory of Men is very high on my TBR thanks to your lengthy voice note endorsement hehehe. I requested it from my library in French, and will report back!
Also love your rumination on spook reading, I have to say I agree! Read spooky all year!!
“Volume III is the best yet” is truuuly music to my ears as I wait for my preorder.
Describing a book as mystery-ish and having reminded you of Biography of X is a summoning ritual to which I’m answering the call.
I’m pages from the end of Books of Jacob and can confirm that Tokarczuk loves a story in interwoven vignettes — Flights is written the same way — as a newly avowed Olga Completist, I’ll have to read this one soon.