June 2026 Reading Roundup (and some newsletter news) I read a lot of books from the to-be-read pile for once. I'll try not to dislocate my shoulder while patting myself on the back for this. But first, newsletter news! If you're a subscriber, you know that the Sawdust newsletter hits your email
May 2026 Reading Roundup I'll admit that rounding up my reading this month is more of a struggle than usual. I read good books! I liked them! But I'm also very aware that I have a book proposal that needs major changes, and they are not the easy kind. It
Two New Book Reviews I have two reviews of wildly different book reviews published this month. One is an academic work about Kubrick films, and the other is an international best-selling novel about going to museums. But they both involve ekphrasis, which is an excellent word meaning "writing about art." Strangelove
What I'm Paying to Read These Days I think you have all figured out by now that I read a lot. I read a lot of books, a lot of academic journals, a lot of newsletters, a lot of literary journals. When I was a kid, I was a devoted reader of the backs of cereal boxes.
Reading Roundup April 2026 Happy May Day, everyone! I hope you're out there making a difference today. Not everyone is built for marching in streets with large crowds, myself included, so it can be challenging to know how to make a difference beyond voting, which only happens twice a year at most.
Bringing Back Sawdust Last year, I tried an experiment on the Wingback Workshop that I called Sawdust. The idea was that these were short diary-like entries for my literary day. I talked about the projects I was working on, like finishing the translation and publication of Memoirs of a French Courtesan, and
Scams! Diaries! Book Promotion!: Stuff to Read I promised that I would share things I read in March that weren't books and that I thought you all would like. So it's not absolutely everything; there were things about technology and things about academic theory that you probably don't care so much
Reading Roundup March 2026 Loyal readers, you will certainly notice that I did not finish many books this month. I have reasons. The first reason is that I DNFed (that's "did not finish," in case you are not someone who follows a racing sport) The Museum of Innocence by Orhan
Mogador Party in Portland! To quote the Timbers Army, "There's a party in Portland!" Come see performers Given Davis and Tingles Van Pelt read from all four volumes of Mogador's Memoirs at Two Rivers Books in Portland, Oregon March 25, 6:30 p.m. I, your humble translator
What I Read in February 2026 Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. That's because I was busy spending my morning hand-coding my website in HTML. With a little bit of CSS. You read that right. I'm a coder now. A coder circa 2003. The human-powered version of
What I read in January 2026 I can't believe I forgot to do the one post I for sure do every month! You may have noticed, January was a very intense year. Before I get to the books I read, let's do other fun news. First, I had an essay in the
Happy (Belated) Publication Day to Payback! Memoirs of a French Courtesan Volume 4: Payback was officially published yesterday! The series is complete! 🥳 If you like to wait until a series is finished to get all the books at once, now is your time. As per usual, I forgot to throw a party for release day, but
Things to Read That Are Not the News I've been saving a bunch of essays that I've read in the past month to share with you all, and while they are timely and thoughtful, they are not The News. They are definitely not Hot Takes. They're not even always about new books.
Mogador's Memoirs Update A quick note to let everyone know that Memoirs of a French Courtesan Volume 4: Payback is available for pre-order via all the usual book-buying places, including Bookshop.org. Official publication day is January 27! Also, all four books have a new and improved font for easier reading.
What I Read in 2025 Does it feel like there are more wrap-up posts this year than usual? It seems like every magazine, blog, and newspaper I subscribe to wrapped up something. The usual best-of and worst-of lists were present, but there also seemed to be something else going on. Like the
WIP Word Count: 3,559 It has been a while since I added any words to this project. I did some research, I made some notes, I thought and thought and thought. But I did not add any words to the actual manuscript. In the meantime, I read "Bach Is a Strange Loop"
Nothing New Under the Sun Everything old is new again. History repeats itself. I'm sure you have your own favorite aphorism or bumper sticker for the cyclical nature of time. I'm reading Dante's Divine Comedy for the third (I think?) time, pencil in hand as usual. Today I read
