What are you reading?
Whether you’re attending the Silent Reading Party tonight in Seattle (click here to snag one of the last remaining seats), or tuning into the party from afar (click here to hear tonight’s music), or not attending the reading party at all — what are you reading?
I love hearing answers to this question. I get the best ideas for what to read next from looking at these comment threads.
Whatever it is — a novel, nonfiction, poetry, history, romance, sci-fi, etc — add it to the comments:
I like to bring options
The reading party is two hours long, and I’m fickle, so I like to bring options. In addition to The Swerve, I’m also bringing a few books about Charles Dickens to get ready for the new FrizzLit class that starts on Monday night on Zoom.
How to tip tonight’s musician
If you would like to send Paul a little extra love for playing piano for two hours straight:
His Venmo is paulmatthew-moore (and if you need them, the last four digits of his number are 9033)
His Paypal is paulmatthewmoore
And you?
What are you reading? Tell me…
The Silent Reading Party’s music tonight will not be recorded. You have to be in the Zoom room — or you have to have a reserved seat at the Sorrento — to experience it.
At Powell's City of Books in Portland I stumbled across German writer Anna Seghers' "Transit" on the remainder tables. If you know Christian Petzold's film of the same name, this is the novel it was based on--and the novel is just as hypnotic and disorienting as the movie. Completed in 1942 but not published in Germany until 1951 (English and Spanish editions appeared earlier), it features a nameless narrator who at various consulates around town is trying out different identities as he waits in refugee limbo in Marseille for a ship that may or may not appear at the docks to take a growing Nazi-menaced displaced population to safety. Based in part of Seghers' own experiences as a leftist who escaped Nazi Germany in 1937, the book is startling, fresh, sinister and absurd. I definitely need to check out more work by Seghers, whose other books, like this one, are being reissued by NYRB Classics.
New Grub Street by George Gissing. it's a story about whether writing is an art or a business. I would recommend it if you don't mind despairing, but realistic, stuff.