The Seventh Function of Language (Laurent Binet)
Weird and fun and infinitely re-readable. May be a rip-off of The Name of the Rose, but that is not something I care about right now.
Orlando: A Biography (Virginia Woolf)
Arguably the catalyst for my Weird Freak Historical Fiction journey, though it may not immediately seem to fit into this sub genre. Definitely a little racist (or at least racial?) at times, because this is Virginia Woolf we’re talking about. Still worth reading, especially if the 1992 film starring TILDA SWINTON!!!! is on your watchlist—it would not have been watchable for me if I had not read the book.
Anything by Mai Ta
I have LOVED Mai Ta’s paintings for years now, and I have also loved watching the evolution of her artwork. She works with gouache on paper on a relatively small scale, and the smoothness of her shapes and shadows lend the paintings a fluid, dreamlike quality. I am especially fond of her latest output, which is darker and less figurative than the bright, colorful portraiture that initially drew me to her (I have not included these in the image here, because I think they are best experienced in sequence all together). In my dreams I have made it out of the gig economy, I have a real job, and I have the money to spend on a Mai Ta painting. One day!
Black Boys on Mopeds (Fontaines D.C.)
Honestly this whole album makes me teary with both despair and hope, but something about current headlines & thinking about who wins in the Being Born Lottery Grian Chatten’s Gregorian chant-esque voice the loss of Sinéad O’Connor makes this one hit especially hard right now
