This week we asked Entropy contributors to talk about the books they’ve recently read.
Henry Hoke
Madeleine E. by Gabriel Blackwell and I wake up every morning excited to read more of it.
Gina Abelkop
For pleasure I’m reading Eve Babitz’s ‘Eve’s Hollywood‘ and it is SO great- very much of a lineage of Los Angeles culture-watchers, like Hollywood Cookie Mueller meets Pamela Des Barres. Witty and smart.
Dennis James Sweeney
I just finished Brian Laidlaw’s The Stuntman, an awesome debut book of poetry from a friend of mine. I’m deep into Walter Benjamin for class. And Kant. A strange generative mixture. And the Tibetan Book of the Dead is still on my nightstand–it feels like an urgent document I need to dig into.
Sara Finnerty
I just finished reading Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. I read it in two nights. The writing is sparse, exacting and beautiful. It is about friendship, race, girls, religion, class, siblings, family, love in the world of 1970’s Brooklyn. I’m also reading a chapter a night of Middlemarch. I thought I’d hate it but it’s actually the perfect thing to read just before bed—to be completely immersed in a different time and place. I’m also reading Joy Williams’ 99 Stories of God. So far it seems God is everyday horrors, small coincidences, and small connections.
Barrett Warner
I’m reading I’d Walk With Friends If I could Find Them, by Jesse Goolsby. It’s a soldier’s story, which means it’s preoccupied with “self” and “other” in the context of killing. Since November 9th, I’ve been sort of dedicating my bookshelf to books about people and places very much unlike me instead of just reading books by the authors I wish I were or ones who seemed to know the same secret handshakes as me.
Cheryl Klein
Our Daughters and Other Stories, a weird and savvy and touching fiction chapbook by my friend Wendy Oleson (published by William Patterson University). Possibly relevant fact: It is 32 pages and the book I just finished (Andrew Solomon’s Far from the Tree) was 700. I might need something literally lighter.
Quincy Rhoards
I’m reading a ton of comic books: Alan Moore’s and Alan Davis’s The Complete D. R. & Quinch, Pyramid Scheme 2 by Josh Burggraf and Victor Kerlow, Junji Ito’s Gyo, Brian Azarello’s run on Wonder Woman, and Jiro Kuwata’s Batmanga.
I love comics because, as a medium, they combine arresting visuals and engaging stories. These aren’t the most serious comics, but they’re a nice way to escape for a bit and all of this art is gorgeous.
Lavinia Ludlow
Sybil Baker’s Immigration Essays. There could not be a more perfect time to read this honest and heartfelt collection than now, this time of civil unrest and the injustices spewing out of the white house.
