History of European philosophy during the 17th century. Begins with the burning of Giordano Bruno in February 0f 1600, & ends with Voltaire's 1755 musing that Newton would have been burned had he been born in Portugal. The big question that the 17th century philosophers got stuck on seems to have boiled down to: “Why does anything happen at all?” During the subsequent years (at least by Voltaire's account) Newton was considered to have supplanted all of the earlier philosophers by simply dismissing the question & focusing on empirical observation of natural laws, such as physics. 

Tale of a Knights Errant in a world where everyone is brain-damaged, or Once & Future King meets Waiting for Godot. Most of the conversations between characters are completely circular, but I'm not sure if it's because everyone in Buried Giant is cursed with forgetfulness, or if the characters are supposed to be especially addled. The main mystery that kept me reading is the mystery of where exactly Ishiguro is taking us in this book. On one level, it seems to be about the relationships between memory, peace, & justice (or revenge). It took me a while to figure out if the supernatural elements are supposed to be all in the characters addled heads, or if they are supposed to be the reality of the world, but I never figured out if that uncertainty is intentional. The last 75 pages or so by which time most of the mysteries surrounding the various characters are dispelled, & the theme of getting old comes to the forefront, works the best emotionally for me. I felt sorry for the for the old knight, the old couple , & even the old dragon. I started reading this for a book club, but my friend didn't like the fantasy English Medieval setting, & didn't finish it. When this book first came out, Ursula LeGuin disliked what she saw as the halfhearted commitment to the genre. I'm not in either camp, but I'm still not sure where this book stands. It's entertaining, touching, & thought provoking. Maybe I should get my friend to finish it, so we can talk this one over. 

Science fictional space exploration framed as a workplace novel. Unsettling & enigmatic. The Employees is a bit of a puzzle & requires sleuthing to determine what exactly is going on, & which character is speaking when. The Employees combines the ideas of a “manufactured” workforce, a sequestered workforce, & an enigmatic workplace with an enigmatic work product in a way that reminds me a little of the TV show “Severance”. The planet & its psychic effects on the human crew, along with the focus on dreams & perception also remind me of Solaris. Stylistically, it reminds me more of the JG Ballard story "Report on an Unidentified Space Station" (which was more of a proto-House of Leaves), or “Answers to a Questionnaire”. The Employees isn't really much like any of those works, though. I'm about 1/3 of the way through reading it again.All in all great to read for a book club. 

Hilarious book about LA, mental illness, scams, internet culture, & various other features of life in 2020s America. I like all of the running jokes in this book, such as the astrologer who thinks astrology is BS, whose completely astrologically based judgments about people are always correct, & the same character following her obsessive & unhealthy impulses to inadvertently do things that are good for her. I can see how many people would not like this book one bit, especially people who know (or knew) anyone like either of the two main characters. Exalted is a book whose audiobook outdoes the print book. I heard parts of the audiobook before picking up the print book, & it has some *inspired* voice performances. 

Incredible poetical account of living under occupation in occupied Palestine. I think the poem that hits me the hardest is “Elderly Woman Falls Asleep on my Shoulder”, because it shows an entire life or an entire world in just a few lines about a single day traveling from one side of the separation barrier to the other. Rifqa a lot of great quotable lines, such as “Who took poets off park benches to put commercials for poets on park benches” & “I wish I were a landlord/ to the tenants in my head”. The essays at the end are also very interesting, providing some extra personal context to all of the poems. I will want to check out “Bellydancing on Wounds” with Clarissa Bitar. 

Collection of seven short stories translated from Spanish. About as weird as I expect from a short story collection, so a pretty high WTF factor. The first four stories were centered on houses, while the last three were kind of about running away from them. All seven stories are pretty dark, especially “Breath from the Depths”. I think “My Parents and My Children” is the most humorous story, & “An Unlucky Man” is the most predictable (to humorous effect). 

Collection of Latin American poems of resistance & protest from the last hundred years or so. Includes poets from the French-speaking Caribbean, & Brazil, also includes a number of poets writing in Mayan, Mapuche, Miskito, Quechua, among other indigenous languages. Each poem is presented in English & the original language it is written in, which is interesting to see the choices the translators made, & it's also great for someone learning Spanish, Mayan, etc. I liked the poet & translator bios at the end, but I wouldn't have minded even more info about all of them, & about the contexts of the poems themselves. I will need to look up music by Rebeca Lane, Margarita Losada Vargas, & Victor Jara. Interesting to note that most of the Nicaraguan Poets were prominent supporters of the FMLN//Sandinistas, but then broke with them in the late 80s-90s, perhaps supporting my theory that wars empower the psychos, & leave the poets out in the cold. 

Bleak story of a Jewish family in early 20th century New York. Coming of age story in century-ago New York City that's sweet at times, but ends tragically for almost all of the characters. Paints New York of a hundred years ago as a very very different sort of life than today; it was still the age of people just dropping dead all of the time from things we take for granted don't kill people anymore (e.g. the flu, pregnancy, abortions). Even with the services of the “lady doctor”, gynecological & obstetric care pretty much consisted of hoping for the best. Basically, it's the world that conservatives, including a good portion of corporate America, wants us to go back to. I thought Fanya's death was especially bitter, since the book begins with her as a child witnessing how she dies later as an adult. Feminism of the day was completely circumscribed by patriarchy. The local lady doctor is so afraid to bring up contraception & family planning that she instead campaigns against sex after marriage. Compares the life of the respectable family life with that of the life of the whores & dancers over at the bordello, with the book seeming to come down in favor of the bordello. Affecting & thought provoking. 

A comics round-up of what there is to know about Banksy, framed as a series of conversations between a street artist & a street art documentarian doing their court-ordered community service painting over graffiti. As with Banksy & his work, it feels like the concept is half the message. In a way, I think I would have liked this book better if it took more of an Existential Comics approach, & committed more fully to the conversations taking place while painting over the street art, & having less of the story of the documentarian & artist doing their own art. Then again, two people being forced to paint over street art & graffiti while talking about the wildly mainstreamed work & career of the great Banksy does not really fit with the point that this book is trying to make, which is that art, & street art in particular is for everyone. The dissonance of Banksy's acceptance into the mainstream of high art while other street art is still viewed as a nuisance is something Banksy's work has tried to address, but really, modern art has been struggling with this for over a century now. The high class art world has been co-opting it's modern art critics for over a century now, despite the best efforts of countless artists to develop concepts resistant to high art. Interestingly, this book depicts very very little of the art of Banksy, choosing to describe the concepts instead, which is probably what Banksy's art is really known for anyway. I like the idea of a street art crew who dress in orange community service jumpsuits. 

Graphical telling of the life of Agatha Christie. This book is full of things I didn't know about Agatha Christie (e.g. she was an aviation early adopter). The early part of the book focuses on her week and a half disappearance in 1926, showing it in the context of her first marriage's breakup. Second half of the books covers the rest of Agatha's life: her dabbling in archaeology, her second marriage, & her very successful writing career. All the while, she's followed around by & talks with her recurring detective characters, especially Poirot, who constantly grates on her. I like how Poirot is depicted in an especially Belgian cartooning style.