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As of 12/25/2024
Reading

  • Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (2023) by Christian Wiman

  • The Blood of the Lamb (1961) by Peter DeVries

  • Reading Genesis (2024) by Marilynne Robinson 

  • The Plague (1947) by Albert Camus

  • Loot (2023) by Tania James

  • The Year She Left Us (2014) by Kathryn Ma

Listening
Considering

  • The Epistle to the Romans

  • Sicario (epic)

  • Wildfire, heartbreak, prayer

As of 12/15/2024
Reading

  • Mere Christianity (1952) by C. S. Lewis

  • Highway Thirteen: Stories (2024) by Fiona McFarlane

  • Didion and Babitz (2024) by Lili Anolik

Listening
Considering

  • My essay on Joan Didion (surprise, surprise!), recently published in The Harvard Salient

  • Living the most privileged life: "The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent, as well as the ones you think wicked — the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'" (Mere Christianity)

  • Cormac McCarthy, who didn't like miserable people: "Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice." (The Passenger)

As of 11/15/2024
Reading

  • Hobbes (for my history class)

  • Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (for my Russian lit class)

Listening
Considering

  • Trader Joe's vanilla extract and vanilla beans​​

  • Instant Pot Chinese sticky rice 

  • Having a life and leaving it behind

As of 11/1/2024
Reading

  • Martin Luther, Francis Bacon, Descartes (for my history class)

  • Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin (for my Russian lit class)

  • Intermezzo (2024) by Sally Rooney

Listening
Considering

  • Wave Books cover designs 

  • The SNL skit on the Age of Discovery

  • Dodgers win!!!!!!!

As of 10/15/2024
Reading

  • Petrarch's Invectives and Machiavelli's Prince (for my history class)

  • Anna Karenina (1873) by Lev Tolstoy

  • Rejection (2024) by Tony Tulathimutte

Listening
Considering

  • Poem and paintings at The Good Life Review just published!

  • Berryline tart original with mochi

  • Coat-and-sunglasses weather

As of 10/1/2024
Reading

  • Ockham (for my history class)

  • I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (2022) by Baek Sehee

Listening
Considering

  • Tower 28's very pink blush 

  • Walking along the Charles at sunset

As of 9/15/2024
Reading

  • Maimonedes (for my history class)

  • Five Star Stranger (2024) by Kat Tang

  • Eugene Onegin (1833) by Alexander Pushkin

  • Bad Fruit (2022) by Ella King

  • The Body in Question (2019) by Jill Ciment

Listening
Considering
  • A painting just published at Flash Frog and a cover painting at Sundog Lit

  • Tatte lattes!

  • That passage about how "the willow tree is you" from The Grapes of Wrath

As of 8/15/2024
Reading

  • There's Always This Year (2024) by Hanif Abdurraquib

  • Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong (2024) by Louisa Lim

Listening
Considering

  • My new publications page! (If you weren't already tired of my voice)

As of 7/20/2024
Reading

  • The Coin (2024) by Yasmin Zaher

  • Bright Objects (2024) by Ruby Todd

Listening
Considering

  • ​Melissa Ling's show Near and Far​ at Gallery 456

  • Ivan David Ng's paintings in Focal Point 3 at Long Story Short

As of 6/15/2024
Reading

  • Real Americans (2024) by Rachel Khong

  • The Skunks (2024) by Fiona Warwick

  • Almond (2017) by Sohn Won-pyung

Listening
Considering
  • $1.50 happy hour oysters
  • Elmer Guevara's show Recess at Lyles & King​
  • Been painting too
As of 5/15/2024
Reading

  • Memory Piece (2024) by Lisa Ko

  • Inverno (2024) by Cynthia Zarin

  • The Story Game (2024) by Shze-Hui Tjoa

  • Foster (2022) by Claire Keegan 

Listening
Considering
  • The virtues of a versatile blazer — blog post here!

  • Psalm 56

As of 4/15/2024
Reading

  • The Stone Home (2024) by Crystal Hana Kim

  • The Three-Body Problem (2008) by Cixin Liu

Listening
Considering
As of 3/15/2024
Reading

  • White Noise (1999) by Don DeLillo

  • The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick

  • Grapefruit (1964) by Yoko Ono

Listening
Considering
  • Estonian egg white cake — actually excellent, recipe here

  • "I am at the age where ___________________," from the Grapefruit questionnaire

As of 3/1/2024
Reading

  • Interpreter of Maladies (1999) by Jhumpa Lahiri

  • Libra (1988) by Don DeLillo

Listening
Considering
As of 2/1/2024
Reading

  • The Historical Novel (1955) by George Lucaks

  • Fools Crow (1986) by James Welch

Listening
Considering

  • Blog is BACK: read a little piece on joyful winter dressing here!

  • "I cannot paint / What then I was," from "...Tintern Abbey..." by W. Wordsworth (1798)

  • The Prada FW24 womenswear show

  • New York summer!!!!!

As of 1/1/2024
Reading

  • Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused (1995) edited by Howard Goldblatt

  • A Life of One's Own (2023) by Joanna Biggs

Listening
Considering

  • The boygenius cover of "You're Still The One" 

  • The NYT print version of the "Ghosts on the Glacier" story

  • This Pearl Jam concert poster by Colby Printing Co.

As of 12/15/2023
Reading

  • Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) by John Updike

  • Three Essays on the State of Economic Science (1936) by Tjalling C. Koopmans

Listening
Considering
As of 11/27/2023
Reading

  • From From (2023) by Monica Youn

  • Rouge Street: Three Novellas (2022) by Shang Xuetao

Listening
Considering

  • The Book Cover Review + John Gall

  • I really should watch the Brideshead Revisited series sometime

  • My Spotify Wrapped: The 1975, Samia, boygenius, Gracie Abrams, Tom Petty

  • "Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said, 'God must love the common people because he made so many of them,' and Dostoevsky would have said the same about ordinary moments. Jesus, Alyosha reflects, performs his first miracle for unremarkable people, so poor they could not afford wine at a wedding...The most important miracle is hidden and does not resemble a miracle at all: the Holy Spirit’s presence at each prosaic moment, allowing us to live aright. And joy, as the unascetic Zossima explains, is also the Spirit’s gift." (from Gary Morson's "The Greatest Christian Novel," which made me cry)

As of 11/15/2023
Reading

  • Marigold and Rose: A Fiction (2022) by Louise Glück

  • Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen

  • The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Listening
Considering
Considering
As of 10/15/2023
Reading

  • Demons (1872) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  • The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (2018) by Denis Johnson

Listening
As of 9/15/2023
Reading

  • Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  • Hao: Stories (2021) by Ye Chun

  • Tomb Sweeping (2023) by Alexandra Chang

Listening
Considering

  • The pile of rubble in my apartment complex's courtyard 

  • Triple Beam roasted mushroom and shallot pizza

As of 8/20/2023
Reading

  • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021) by George Saunders

  • The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Listening
Considering
  • Edgar Degas' watercolors

  • Winslow Homer's Natural Bridge - Bermuda (1901)

As of 8/10/2023
Reading

  • White Cat Black Dog (2023) by Kelly Link

  • Biting the Hand (2023) by Julia Lee

  • Tom Lake (2023) by Ann Patchett 

  • Witness (2023) by Jamel Brinkley

  • Nothing Special (2023) by Nicole Flattery

Listening
Considering
As of 7/22/2023
Reading

  • I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home (2023) by Lorrie Moore

  • The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu (2021) by Tom Lin 

Listening
Considering
​​​​

  • The new Prada campaign

  • Zibezi's "Lost Elephant" (2023)

As of 6/30/2023
Reading

  • You Can't Stay Here Forever (2023) by Katherine Lin

  • Sing Her Down (2023) by Ivy Pochoda

  • Intimations (2020) by Zadie Smith 

Listening
Considering
​​​​
As of 6/16/2023
Reading

  • Chemistry (2017) by Weike Wang

  • Trust Exercise (2019) by Susan Choi

  • Birnam Wood (2023) by Eleanor Catton 

Listening
Considering
As of 6/7/2023
Reading

  • Eventide (2018) by Therese Bohman 

  • Natural Beauty (2023) by Ling Ling Huang

Listening
Considering

  • I literally can only think about the Succession finale, which I watched with my dad late late late on Sunday night. It was 90 minutes of perfect TV. The last shots of the kids were devastating and evocative — Kendall broken, Roman free, Shiv stuck as ever. I wanted so badly to believe that the kids could be together and be okay, and that Kendall's channeled delusion could save the day — for, when he flies, he really soars — but his boardroom breakdown was proof enough of his ultimate inability, that fatal hubris. In the end, Roman, sharp and offensive and unapologetic as always, says the truest and most real thing of the whole season, perhaps the whole show: "it's all fucking nothing."

As of 6/1/2023
Reading

  • Heart Sutra (2023) by Yan Lianke

  • Taipei People (1971) by Pai Hsien-yung

  • Yellowface (2023) by Rebecca Kuang

Listening
As of 5/29/2023
Reading

  • The Sorrows of Others (2023) by Ada Zhang 

  • Lila (2014) by Marilynne Robinson

  • Jack (2020) by Marilynne Robinson

Listening
Considering
  • The term "Stakhanovite"

  • AD's vid on LA's architectural styles

As of 5/19/2023
Reading

  • Essays in Persuasion (1931) by John Maynard Keynes

  • The Guest (2023) by Emma Cline

  • Flux (2023) by Jinwoo Chong

Listening
Considering
As of 5/11/2023
Reading

  • The Colony (2022) by Audrey Magee

  • Pineapple Street (2023) by Jenny Jackson

  • The Creative Act (2023) by Rick Rubin

Listening
Considering
As of 5/1/2023
Reading

  • Wandering Souls (2023) by Cecile Pin

  • Hello Beautiful (2023) by Ann Napolitano

  • Written on Water (2023) by Eileen Chang

Listening
Considering
As of 4/24/2023
Reading

  • Sea Change (2023) by Gina Chung

  • The Laughter (2023) by Sonora Jha

  • I Could Live Here Forever (2023) by Hanna Halperin

Listening
Considering
As of 4/17/2023
Reading

  • Biography of X (2023) by Catherine Lacey

  • Banyan Moon (2023) by Thao Thai

Listening
As of 3/26/2023
Reading

  • Fiona and Jane (2022) by Jean Chen Ho

  • The Paper Menagerie (2016) by Ken Liu

Listening
As of 3/7/2023
Reading

  • Trust (2022) by Hernan Diaz

  • Sweet Days of Discipline (1991) by Fleur Jaggy

Listening
As of 2/24/2023
Reading

  • Central Places (2023) by Delia Cai

  • The Guest Lecture (2023) by Martin Riker

Listening
As of 2/11/2023
Reading

  • Ghost Music (2023) by An Yu

  • The Chinese Groove (2023) by Kathryn Ma

Listening
As of 2/1/2023
Reading

  • Braised Pork (2020) by An Yu

  • Intimacies (2021) by Katie Kitamura

  • A Separation (2017) by Katie Kitamura

  • Sea of Tranquility (2022) by Emily St. John Mandel

Listening
As of 1/17/2023
Reading

  • The School for Good Mothers (2023) by Jessamine Chan

  • Our Missing Hearts (2022) by Celeste Ng

  • Indelicacy (2020) by Amina Cain

  • Aesthetica (2022) by Allie Rowbottom

Listening
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