Books

2026

Compelling post-mortem of the 1996 Everest disaster. It's a pity that matters are only worse now after all these years.

Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer · 1997

★ 4

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Highlights: Clay, Evelyn, A Little Cloud, A Painful Case. It's interesting how the stories here serve to contrast the other. Araby deals with childhood love, and Eveline immediately after considers the bargains of adult relationships. Clay and A Little Cloud both deal with people who failed to find partners but with differing paths to the same lonely place. Wonder if this was intentional.

Dubliners

James Joyce · 1914

★ 4

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Whimsical, strange, and affirming. Strengthened my desire to read more Murakami.

Desire

Haruki Murakami · 2017

★ 4

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2025

Hard to imagine the depth of research and depth in general it'd have taken to write this...fact/fiction, history/myth are all blended intoxicatingly here. The prose can be hyper-realist and descriptive of all the minutiae of medieval Mewar and then immediately veer to magical realism. The protagonist is incredibly compelling as a tragic hero, and the central motif of the book's title finds purchase again and again in ways big and small.

Cuckold

Kiran Nagarkar · 1999

★ 5

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The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway · 1952

★ 3

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The three (four) Musketeers are older and wearier, the promise of the future has dulled and life has them at cross-purposes. This feels like a swan song at times and I dread reading the last book(s) in the trilogy where I'll have to actually bid farewell to Dumas' heroes - think I'll put it off reading these for some time.

Twenty Years After (Musketeers Trilogy #2)

Alexandre Dumas · 1845

★ 4

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Coetzee offers up a blistering critique of colonialism and the machinery of a State. As with all Coetzee protagonists, the central character is equal-parts pathos and incandescent redemptive humanity.

Waiting for the Barbarians

J.M. Coetzee · 1980

★ 4

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Reading this right after CoMC was interesting; while the plot here isn't nearly as tightly constructed, the characters are all electric, unlike CoMC where the Count is the keystone for every plot and intrigue. Here, the central protagonist, D'Artagnan, doesn't even find mention in the novel's name, and the characters are embedded as tiny cogs in the wheel of history. The eponymous protagonists get their deserved plaudits but the cast of supporting characters with the lackeys and the aristocrats help elevate the novel even when the Musketeers are absent from the page. We're teased several antagonists with the Cardinal and Rochefort before Milady assumes her role as an agent of malice. In many ways, Milady isn't all that different from the Musketeers (who despite their heroics are vain, lazy, and debauched) - she possesses the same force of character that seems to bend the world to her whims. If this is ever adapted decently for the screen, it'll need someone singular to play her. Excited to read the rest of the D'Artagnan romances.

The Three Musketeers (Musketeers Trilogy #1)

Alexandre Dumas · 1844

★ 4

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"The sea is the cemetery of Chateau d'If." Was nice to revisit an era where everything is binary, the heroes and villains are just that, there's no grey morality and anti-heroes are not the vogue (although maybe the Count is an anti-hero given the tragedies dealt by his hand). The Count is omniscient and omnipotent, and his machinations are delightful. It strains incredulity at times but there's enough here to provoke the mind of those with a philosophical bent. Dumas' reflections on fate and providence elevate this from a mere revenge thriller (and the thrills are aplenty) to a more profound treatise on the human condition. "Wait and hope."

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas · 1844

★ 4

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Every sentence is replete with metaphors, similes, and analogies - a story unto itself. Oppressively sad but ever so hopeful.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong · 2019

★ 4

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Eschewing the brutal minimalism of Things Fall Apart, this is verbose. While TFA felt like taking a sledgehammer to your sensibilities, No Longer At Ease is scalpel like in its precision - constantly probing and unsettling. Coincidentally, read this a couple of months after reading Coetzee's Barbarians; interesting to see colonialism here from the lens of the oppressed instead of the oppressor - ironically both ultimately bereft of the humanity they seek to protect.

No Longer at Ease (The African Trilogy, #3)

Chinua Achebe · 1961

★ 4

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Deeply human and affirming, leaves you feeling like you can wring water from stone.

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl · 1946

★ 5

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Mandela's retelling of his time in captivity at Robben Island is incredibly uplifting, liable to give hope to even the most hapless soul.

A Long Walk to Freedom: 1918-1962 v. 1

Nelson Mandela · 1994

★ 4

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Had my stomach tied up in knots at times. Some of the best depiction of anxiety I've come across. Author has a rare gift for blending despair and nerve-tingling giddiness, sometimes in a single sentence.