The Wingback Workshop

July 2025 Reading Roundup

July kind of sucked, everybody. There was a medical emergency with my aging cat that we're mostly out of, and my friends and family had a dizzying array of struggles that I could only sort of help with. But there were also, as always, books. This month, a

A Room of One's Own in an Age of Interruption

We are, we are repeatedly told, living in an age of distraction. There is much woe regarding the state of the children and their short attention spans, much lamenting poured over our own inability to focus. But like so many other issues, I’m not sure this is a personal

June 2025 Reading Roundup

I planned to write this post yesterday, but I tripped over a tree root during my hike with the dog yesterday and scraped my knee and tore a tiny hole in my favorite multipocket tights (from Janji, FYI) and I was miserable about it (just ask my friends, who got

Review: Homework, by Geoff Dyer

Review: Homework by Geoff Dyer Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, June 2025   I know I am not alone or even original in thinking a lot about artificial intelligence and large language models lately. My considerations of the use and meaning of AI have been seeping into everything, whether I like it

May 2025 Reading Roundup

A busy book reading month for me, including two for review. Let's not waste time, then. I did a reading in March at Bold Books and Coffee in Portland, Oregon, and I sold a couple of books. Hooray! Then I bought Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, which brought my

Review: Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue

Review: Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue Yoko Tawada New Directions, on sale June 3, 2025   We are living in a time of great concern about borders. This is most prominent in the United States, where in 2025 people who have legally immigrated to the country are being taken off

Housekeeping

Sadly for you, dear readers, this is not a post about Marilyn Robinson's novel Housekeeping, which I have been meaning to read for years and have not. This is about the Wingback Workshop and some changes I've made (don't worry, they're good!

Available Now: Memoirs of a French Courtesan Vol. 3: Luck

Happy publication day to Memoirs of a French Courtesan Volume 3: Luck! The author sadly won't be able to enjoy this new volume of the translation by Kristen Hall-Geisler, but as Celeste Mogador has been dead for more than a century, she probably won't mind. And

April 2025 Reading Roundup

The absolutely final, no-changes version of my master's thesis was due on April 1, and you can tell because I finished reading a bunch of books last month that have nothing to do with medieval literature. Graduation is at the end of this month, and my cap and

Review: Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put Annie B. Jones HarperOne, April 22, 2025  I don’t often like books of essays because I read them too fast. Essays that were originally published months or years apart turn out to be repetitive when collected. Little quirks that seemed charmingly idiosyncratic

Copyright Confusion Means You Get Free E-books

Memoirs of a French Courtesan is a four-volume set of books written by a woman known as Céleste Mogador and published in 1858. There is a two-volume set that she published a few years earlier; like any savvy author, she capitalized on its success and released an expanded edition. I&

DNF: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

I made it two stories into Rejection before I returned it to the library. Reviewers whose writing I like and whose taste I trust loved the latest book from Tony Tulathimutte, and its exploration of rejection sounded deep and thought-provoking while being funny and sharp. I think those reviewers were

Feathers

This is the third circle of white feathers to appear in our yard this year. The first two were under the plum tree, between the front porch and the sidewalk. The white feathers fluffed against the dark, half-decomposed mulch surrounding the dormant blackberries and spirea. It’s the Pacific Northwest,

Repost: Automotive R&D for Writers

This week is the last spring break of my master's degree, so I'm taking time off to bask in the glow of a completed thesis. In the meantime, here's a popular post from 2023 for you to read while my brain takes a break.

Get Ready for Memoirs Volume 3: Luck!

The penultimate installment of Mogador's memoirs is almost here! Memoirs of a French Courtesan Volume 3: Luck will be in stores and available online May 13, 2025. This is the longest of the series, and it covers her rocky relationship with Robert as well as the most glancing

Review: The River Has Roots

The River Has Roots Amal El-Mohtar Tor, March 4, 2025   I will admit to not being the biggest sci-fi and fantasy fan. I have read plenty of books that fall into those genres, and I trust the publisher Tor and the magazine Uncanny to bring the best of these genres

Resistance Training

I had insomnia last night, a not uncommon occurrence throughout my life. I was thinking at 3:17 a.m. about the lack of overt political stances or calls to action on The Wingback Workshop, especially in These Troubled Times. Here are the ideas that form the foundation of everything

Space Time

Orbital Samantha Harvey Grove Press, 2024   Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the 2024 Booker Prize, and it was widely hailed, despite not having anything resembling a plot. The word “meditation” or “meditative” appears in almost every review, and it’s hard to dispute that assessment. The novel feels as suspended

Review: There's No Turning Back

There’s No Turning Back Alba de Céspedes, trans. Ann Goldstein Washington Square Press, Atria, February 11, 2025 Without opening the cover or cracking the spine of Alba de Céspedes’s 1938 novel There’s No Turning Back, it was pretty much a given that it would be banned by

Walking a Well-Worn Path Is a Thing with Feathers

I have pages of notes that I thought were so fucking genius comparing the crow that lives inside the zombie's rib cage in It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken and "'Hope' is the thing with feathers—," one

Reading Roundup: January 2025

Hello everyone, and a special welcome to the handful of new subscribers who've joined us this month. Everyone find your virtual wingback chair of the mind; we have plenty. Sip the beverage of your choice while I share what I finished reading to start 2025. The Sovereignty of

Turn Your Attention Toward Something You Love

Mike Montiero shares his strategies for staying online (but not on Instagram) In These Times. These are solid ideas, and he's bringing years of personal experience to the problem. The idea is to turn your attention away from the figure in the spotlight, the one who is so

ARC Alert: There's No Turning Back

A book nearly a century old, about eight women attending college in Rome, translated by Ann Goldstein (she did Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet). The copy from Atria press says it was considered "experimental and revolutionary" and it was banned by the Fascisti. Every single thing about this

Why the Wingback Workshop?

It occurred to me that I should answer the question that not one person has ever asked me, in person or online: Why the Wingback? Why the Wingback Workshop? The Wingback In the summer of 2023, I was on the Harvard campus as part of my master's degree

ARC Alert: The River Has Roots

Look at that cover! Amal El-Mohtar's novella The River Has Roots comes out in early March, so look for my review then. - khg