The Philosophy of Cozy
I want to talk about the number of cats on book covers, and in particular, the number of cats on book covers by Japanese authors in Western bookshops. It’s gotten to the point where every time I walk into a…
Category Books
The End of Reading
Many articles are now discussing the decline in reading among the younger generation. Half of adults in the UK rarely pick up a book for pleasure. Reading is in decline in the US even in literature programs. Talking to professors…
Absence: A short story
The husband’s favourite section of the Tao Te Ching is about the space between things. A bowl is only useful because of the space within it, same with a doorway, or an open path. Sometimes he thinks that the space…
New Novel Eloquent Graffiti Release
Hi all, My new novel Eloquent Graffiti is coming out this month, and is only a dollar in the first few weeks! Here’s the blurb: When Calloway arrives in Berlin, he’s hoping for a fresh start. A talented but guarded…
Sunset in Rome
Sunset in Rome in February. Warm enough to sit in a t-shirt on the stone steps facing L’Altare Della Patria. I strip off my jacket and I let it crumple to the stone steps below me. A couple walks by…
Her People’s Flag
The Café Fleury is covered in scaffolding by mid-summer, caused by the building works happening on the upper levels. White sheets are draped over the scaffolding, and it looked like a haunted house. There were three couples on the tables…
One day in Berlin
Saturday morning starts early in Berlin, where everyone is already out enjoying their breakfast. In Germany, they use breakfast as a verb. They breakfast their croissants, with waffles and cream. Next to us sit a table of three, breakfasting some…
The Train to Starnberg
I took the morning train down to Starnberg and immediately exited the station onto a stunning view of the lake, stretching as far as the eye could see, towards the distant mountains. Seagulls squawked in squadrons down by the shoreline,…
The World of Elif Batuman: Either / Or and Kierkegaard
Elif Batuman has become something of a cult figure in certain social circles. A writer who, retrospectively, went back and wrote one of the greatest college novels of all time, a coming-of-age story equal parts philosophy and literature, based loosely…
The Poet in Residence
It was lush inside, but simultaneously a mess, with papers lying everywhere, and old magazines, and posters on the wall of Elvis and Humphrey Bogart. The poet, by contrast, was pristine. Her hair was white-grey and cut short on her…