Tom Mccarthy’s recent novel Satin Island (2015), is a Kafkaesque tale narrated by a corporate anthropologist named U who has been tasked to produce the Great Anthropological Report of our times. Instead, or perhaps because of his task, he becomes enamoured with the aesthetics of oil spills, the possibility of a serial killer of skydivers… Keep Reading
It was my grandfather who clued me on to The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley. He had seen the author on TV and, inspired by my recent invitation to read books and discuss them together, suggested that we start with this one. I am not quite sure I will forgive him for that one extremely… Keep Reading
I first read The Outsider by Albert Camus when I was an angsty teenager and understood close to none of it. I knew the book was famous and expected it to A) assert definite truths about the world, and B) be very long. As it fulfilled neither of these expectations I felt it had failed… Keep Reading
Easy read with a quirky soul. Keep Reading
This month has been all about leisure, but at Ark we are also all about that hard work. Some books just have to be read despite their tedious sentences, wacky logic or complete lack of grammatical coherence. It’s tough, but someone’s gotta do. Here are a few staff picks, for when you feel like giving… Keep Reading
Dystopian novel for the feminists and the fearful. Keep Reading
“In declining, the novelist said it felt too much like rooting around in someone’s underwear drawer.” So says the editor, Matias Viegener, of the person he and McKenzie Wark initially approached to write the preface for “I’m very into you”, in its introduction. This is an entirely accurate description of my reading experience but, unlike… Keep Reading
In the month of June on the Ark Review, taking inspiration from Mark Grief’s recent book “Against Everything”, we are going to try and write against everything. Collectively though, and one subject at a time. So really more like Against ________. As in, fill in the ________. So, check out Emilie Bang-Jensen’s of “Against Everything”… Keep Reading
Radical ideas of learning relevant for anyone tired of the modern consumer society. Keep Reading
At the bottom of the corn yellow cover, in overstated yet small italics, is written the claim: “a novel”. However, it’s really more like an oversized pamphlet in witness protection, disguising as a novel, cap and sunglasses on, as it never lets the reader forget that it is, in fact, a novel—but a bad one.… Keep Reading