I’m not sure whether the publishing company Faber and Faber had a specific target group in mind when they put together the promotional material for Sally Rooney’s debut novel Conversations with Friends, in 2017. Though this story is very much about the lives and mindsets of millennials (roughly speaking the generation born between the early… Keep Reading
This month on the Ark Audio Book Club we discussed the Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinek’s disturbing 1983 novel of repression desire and violence, The Piano Teacher. The novel tells the story of Erika Kohut, a talented one-time concert pianist in Vienna who, due to a couple of key performance failures (although arguably the cause… Keep Reading
If you read I Love Dick in public places and have ever since missed the strange looks from passersby, despair no more; here is another book for you to read on the metro! The Necrophiliac is a very short book from 1972 and many reviews emphasize how disgusting it is and how difficult it was… Keep Reading
The Lacanian philosopher Alenka Zupančič’ new book What IS Sex? (2017) is Zupančič at her absolute finest. Zupančič compellingly destabilizes any notion you might have of a sound ontological foothold in the world. One does not simply be with Zupančič. Rather than reject human sexuality as something for the meanderings of sexologists or scoffingly dismissed… 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
Custom dictates that in December one is to recommend books that have some, even oblique, connection to this festive period. This may be something of the joy of love and friendship or perhaps something to help with the kind of melancholic reflection common to the event that marks the end of another calendar year. The… Keep Reading
The funniest book of 2016: Nell Zink’s first novel The Wallcreeper from 2014 is a witty, dark and sharp portrait of a marriage as perceived by Tiffany, our unsentimental, humorous and snappy heroine. There is no way to recap this book in a few lines without corrupting it by focusing on the plot and history –… Keep Reading
I happened upon this picture of the actor, writer, musician and former pornographic actor, Sasha Grey, reading Slavoj Žižek’s 2008 book, In Defence of Lost Causes, on my Facebook timeline posted by a fan/meme page dedicated to the Slovenian philosopher. The photograph itself was clearly part of an attempt to mould Grey’s public persona in… Keep Reading
A girl commits suicide, after her ‘’coming-of-age’’ turns into a freudian nightmare. I’d like to start this book review out with a long awkward silence. /Hold it. Rarely have I read a book that is so difficult to say something about. Possibly because of the anger and fury that evaporates from all the pages, which… Keep Reading