transcribed from my journals the past few years, incomplete, but mostly here. best viewed on desktop!
updated 7/6/26
2026
1. drive your plow over the bones of the dead / olga tokarczuk (f 1/3) ~*
5. why are people into that? / tina horn (f 1/22, courtesy of amy)
6. sun city / tove jansson (1/24-2/9) *
9. notes from an island / tove jansson (f 2/28) *
10. lonely crowds / stephanie wambugu (3/1-3/4) *
11. all fours / miranda july (3/5-3/6)
12. the days of abandonment / elena ferrante (3/7-3/10) *
ok here's my notes-app review from when i read it, cuz it's been a while: I found this a little unsatisfying overall, it was my sloggiest read of recent months. felt their stories bumping up for me against the limits of the domestic couple form even as the author supposedly disavows it. felt somewhat politically staid. though with moments of invention, beauty, and sweetness that left me still curious about the other literary, visual and filmic work they’ve both made. and a reminder to go back and finish the book of salt!13. the autobiography of h. lan thao lam / lana lin (3/?-4/8)
i had higher expectations for this one (like the press and was intrigued by the description) but felt it was just okay overall. some things i loved—lan thao's relationship to biking, the transmasculine imaginary of being a handsome old man on your bike—but politically hazy and liberal, shallow analysis of vietnamese anticommunism, wanted more.
14. night night fawn / jordy rosenberg (4/11-4/15) *
propulsive and hilarious. hiiiiii jordy
15. landbridge / y-dang troeung (4/20?-4/26) *
heartbreaking, beautiful memoir in fragments and letters. with a much deeper analysis of the khmer rouge's history, and communisms and anticommunisms, which i really appreciated after #13 from this year. much love and warmth to y-dang's memory and family. this made me want to read her scholarship as well.
16. famesick / lena dunham (4/21)
17. bodies and pleasures / ladelle mcwhorter (4/26—still reading, taking long break but interesting and stylish scholarly writing, i need to return it to the library cuz i'm getting lost item fees)
18. solidarity with children / madeline lane-mckinley (4/22-5/5)
thoughtful, enjoyable, though an excess of citationality common to this kind of lefty book, especially in the introduction, grated a bit. i thought her writing about her own parenting and relationship to her kid was very sweet. okay, in googling about this book just now (i'm writing on july 6th so forgot the details of my reading) i found this substack article which calls this book + dean spade's LIAFUW + others haymarket/versoslop, which is a bit funny, mean, and accurate enough to parts of my experience, though i feel more generosity towards these authors (and their editors!!), and want to engage critically beyond "i already know about family abolition and children's liberation so it's not adding much..." + "everything-is-slop" compulsion.... i did learn much about details and histories of children's liberatory mvmts! i also think it's kind of obvious that these kinds of books are primers so expectations should be adjusted
19. a horse at night / amina cain (5/2, read in store at second story books in dc)
this was cute, kinda relatable (renee gladman stans unite, fun discussion of hanging out alone), and fine
20. constructive criticism / vicki legion (5/12) *
21. tokyo ueno station / yu miri (5/20-21)
22. event factory / renee gladman (end of may to mid-june) *
awesome book to read while traveling in japan. i love RG's architectures, linguist analysis, inventiveness, surprise, lesbian sex. yum
23. sorry to disrupt the peace / patrick cottrell (late may) *
can't say it much better than ty's review but i loved it!
24. all the cameras in my room / michael deforge (6/10) *
felt shy reading this on the train with all these cocks and monster sex but it was great. haunting last story about police infiltrators and movement repression, stays with me.
25. afternoon hours of a hermit / patrick cottrell (early june) *
26. the tombs of atuan / ursula k. leguin (6/28—still rdg) *
27. the default world / naomi kanakia (6/29)
a trans woman's (mis)adventures in acquiring surgeries via techie-marriage-insurance, an intriguing concept rendered with boldness, if not polish or style (IMO). i came across this title not via the rest of the trans lit scene (though it was blurbed and reviewed by other trans writers) but via some (annoying, rationalist, "heterodox," if gaysian) blogger, and i see why it appeals to that person—the whole thing is very bay area rationalist/post-rationalist/tech burner; even as the protagonist disavows, critiques, and tries to steal from that milieu, she's deeply entrenched in its values. i think there's a whole thing of rand references but i haven't read her work so i wouldn't know for sure [edit: it's actually a Robert A. Heinlein reference.]. everyone extremely irritating, bad prose, though the protagonist's story is moving regardless. wished more pleasure for her but that's life sometimes. this morning i've been reading the author's newsletter and feeling the same annoyance, which boils down to my disagreement with her politics, which are implicit in both her writing and her easy, friendly, uncritical engagement with those i'd consider reactionaries, misogynists, bad writers. all very "Substack provocateur," which, not for me.
2025
1. extinct: a compendium of obsolete objects, in progress -> had to return to library.... but maybe i'll get through the ebook later
2. love in a fucked up world / dean spade (finished 2/12)
3. territory of light / yuko tsushima (finished 3/2)
4. rejection / tony tulathimutte (finished 3/5)
5. women's hotel / daniel lavery (finished 3/10)
6. constructing a nervous system / margo jefferson (finished 3/26ish) *
7.
8. my lesbian novel / renee gladman (f 4/25) *
9. wildcat dome / yuko tsushima (f 5/8) *
10. mild vertigo / mieko kanai (f 5/20) *
11. girlfriends / emily zhou (f 5/22)
12. confessions of the fox / jordy rosenberg (f 6/28) *
13. after work / helen hester and nick srnicek (f 7/12)
14. world of interiors / aurelia guo (finished 8/10)
15. how do i look? / sennah yee (finished 7/30)
16. salvage / dionne brand (finished 8/4) *
17.
18. model home / rivers solomon (finished 8/16) *
19. the word book / mieko kanai (finished 9/6)
20.
21. attention seeking / adam phillips (9/17 - ongoing)
23.
28. soledad brother / george jackson (october to 12/29) *
30. fair play / tove jansson (f 12/14) *
31. i remember / joe brainard (f 12/20)
32. TOAF / renee gladman (f 12/24)
33. the premonition / banana yoshimoto (f 12/28)
2024
1.
2. what can a body do: how we meet the built world / sara hendren
3. neotenica / joon oluchi lee
4. familiar face / michael deforge *
5. asleep / banana yoshimoto *
6. trust exercise / susan choi *
7. my education / susan choi
8.
9. fan fiction: a satire / tavi gevinson (zine - finished june 13)
10. concerning my daughter / kim hye-jin * (finished july 4)
11. fish in exile / vi khi nao * (finished july 15)
12.
13.
14.
15. the changeling / joy williams * (finished 8/10)
16. alien daughters walk into the sun / jackie wang * (finished 8/14)
17. fang si-chi's first love paradise / lin yi-han (finished 8/31)
18. hit parade of tears / izumi suzuki (finished 9/9)
19. a wizard of earthsea / ursula le guin * (finished 10/12)
20. little fish / casey plett (finished 10/14)
21. a dream of a woman / casey plett * (finished 11/9)
22. next year for sure / zoey leigh peterson (finished 11/12)
23. so many olympic exertions / anelise chen (finished 12/1)
24. the summer book / tove jansson * (finished 12/24)
25. mrs caliban / rachel ingalls * (finished 12/30)
2023
1. how to get over the end of the world / hal schrieve ~*
2. all this could be different / sarah thankam mathews ~*
3. matigari / ngugi wa thiong'o
4. activities of daily living / lisa hsiao chen *
5. blockchain chicken farm / xiaowei wang (unfinished)
6. backyard adventurer / beau miles (lol)
7. goodbye things / fumiko sasaki (random minimalist book)
8. what it is / lynda barry * (unfinished, still revisiting)
9.
10. the ex-girlfriend of my ex-girlfriend is my girlfriend / maddy court
11. boys weekend / mattie lubchansky
12. america is not the heart / elaine castillo *
13. the man without talent / yoshitaru tsuge
14.
15.
16.
17.
18. idlewild / james frankie thomas ~*
19. after accountability / pinko
20. make the golf course a public sex forest (unfinished)
21. left hand of darkness / ursula k. le guin *
22. polysecure / jessica fern
23.
24. just ride / grant petersen (random instructional bike book)
25.
2022
1. [redacted] manuscript for work
2. long live the tribe of fatherless girls / t kira madden
3. the graphic design idea book (random library speed-read)
4.
5. skim / jillian & mariko tamaki
6. the call-out / cat fitzgerald %
7. detransition baby / torrey peters
8. black ball / theresa runstedtler %
9. search history / eugene lim *
10. the days of afrekete / asali solomon
11.
12. of forests and of farms / adjua gargi nzinga greaves (unfinished)
13. super mutant magic academy / jillian tamaki *
14. outline / rachel cusk
15. the deep / rivers solomon
16.
17.
18.
19. convenience store woman / sayaka murata
20.
21. transit / rachel cusk
22. lesser known monsters of the 21st century / kim fu *
23. chinatown pretty / andria lo & valerie luu (picture book read in kinokuniya)
24.
25.
26. the secret history / donna tartt
27.
28. the dispossessed / ursula k. le guin *
29. kudos / rachel cusk
30. through the arc of the rainforest / karen tei yamashita *
31. bliss montage / ling ma
32. at the wrong end of the telescope / rabih alameddine *
33.
2021
1. calamities / renee gladman
2. overcoming harm ocd / jon hirshfield
3. wow, no thank you / samantha irby
4. trans girl suicide museum / hannah baer
5. braiding sweetgrass / robin wall kimmerer (unfinished)
6. prisoners' inventions / angelo
7. women's house of detention / hugh ryan %
8.
9. sorrowland / rivers solomon *
10. pamela, a novel / pamela lu
11. everyone on the moon is essential personnel / julian k. jarboe *
12. several people are typing / calvin kasulke
children's book intermission: corduroy, stellaluna, and verdi with ty (10/1/24)
13.
14. so long a letter / mariama ba (unfinished)
15. darryl / jackie ess *
17. nevada / imogen binnie
17. cassandra at the wedding / dorothy baker *
2020
my record of this year is particularly incomplete....who knows what was read this year
1. wayward lives, beautiful experiments / saidiya hartman (not sure if i finished)
2. pet / akwaeke emezi *
3. dirty river (again?)
4. sexual citizens / shamus khan and jennifer hirsch
5. we are never meeting in real life / sam irby
6. meaty / sam irby
7. luster / raven leilani
8.
9.
10. an unkindness of ghosts / rivers solomon *
11. leave the world behind / rumaan alam #
2019
1. the story of the lost child / elena ferrante (not sure if i finished)
2. the lake / banana yoshimoto *
3. the friend / sigrid nunez
4.
5. trumpet / jackie kay (unfinished)
6. snotgirl / brian lee o’malley and leslie hung
7. kindred / octavia butler
8. department of speculation / jenny offill
9. loving in the war years / cherrie moraga %
10. thomas and beulah / rita dove %
11. silver sparrow / tayari jones
12. bread out of stone / dionne brand * (started in 2018, finished in 2019)
13. freshwater / akwaeke emezi (started in 2018, mostly read / finished in 2019)
14. patsy / nicole dennis-benn
15. revolutionary mothering / ed. alexis pauline gumbs
16.
17. selfcarefully / gracy obuchowicz (i don’t remember reading this. but apparently i did at wendy's subway)
18.
19.
20. normal people / sally rooney
21. dirty river / leah piepzna-samarasinha *
22. how to do nothing / jenny odell
23.
24. you too can have a body like mine / alexandra kleeman (couldn’t finish..)
25. no family history / kristen mccormick %
26. love enough / dionne brand (not sure if i finished)
27.
2018
1. what we lose / zinzi clemmons
2. what about the rest of your life / sung yim *
3. the mothers / brit bennett
4. here comes the sun / nicole dennis benn *
5. my brilliant friend / elena ferrante *
6. parable of the sower / octavia butler *
7. parable of the talents / octavia butler
8. the story of a new name / elena ferrante *
9. those who leave and those who stay / elena ferrante
10. sula / toni morrison (unfinished)
11.
12.
13. the untelling / tayari jones *
14. annie john / jamaica kincaid *
15.
16. an american marriage / tayari jones
17. cereus blooms at night / shani mootoo *
18. heads of the colored people / nafissa thompson-spires
19. kitchen / banana yoshimoto *
20. the incendiaries / r.o. kwon
21. what it means when a man falls from the sky / lesley nneka arimah
* really liked
% read for a class, or for work
# actively disliked
font credits: hershey futura light (updated 3.2025 for readability from dear bianzhidai)