#lizardreading

[last year]

stats

maaan i read a lot this year, actually 🤔 a lot of short books which inflates the total number a little, but still. not bad, not bad.

also, friend me on storygraph y'all

best of

aka this year's favorites

Absolute Favorite: Rakesfall (Vajra Chandrasekera)

this book!! gripped me from page 1, half the time i had no idea what is going on - and this book doesn't give a fuck if you get it or not lol - still couldn't stop reading. somehow, this touched something inside me that very few books manage, and i still can't explain what exactly. just that i finished it and thought "yep. new favorite book."

Favorite Classic: Molloy (Samuel Beckett)

i made a point of deliberately mixing up my reading diet and reading both "current" stuff as well as older ones, and i heard good things about Beckett, so i figured why not. and his whole trilogy is SUCH a weirdass experience. absolute masterpiece that i probably wouldn't recommend to anyone unless i knew they were into weird shit. very hard read, half the time you have no idea what's going on, and then he blows you away with a random sentence that has you reevaluate your life. jfc that prose. i need to re-read this soon.

Favorite Nonfiction: Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwan (Rosemary Sullivan)

ough my heart. so i'm not a poetry person, at all. but Gwen MacEwan for some reason fascinates the hell out of me, even tho i rarely get her work. but she herself as a person is just such a tragic figure and idk, i just want to wrap her into a blanket lol. and this biography is SO good. very long and detailed, and just very… personal, i think. intimate. maybe it's because the author knew her. but it's a great and tragic read.

Notable Mention: The City and Its Uncertain Walls (Haruki Murakami)

this fucking book. a slow, meandering mess that is probably twice as long as it needs to be - and yet. strangly compelling, not once did i think i wouldn't finish it. i'm still not sure what it is about this book that draws me in, but i've read it in march and i'm STILL thinking about it. the damn town behind the wall. the unicorns. the library ghost. the fucking autistic shadow. i kinda hate that it hasn't let me go yet, because it's not a particularly great book imo. maybe i need to re-read it (doubtful). anyway, congrats Mr Murakami, idk what you did, but you somehow did it.

other favorites

in no specific order