There’s a chapter midway through on the nature of immigration that I’m going to use in my classes. Need to get photograph those pages.

Sarr, Mohamed Mbougar. The Silence of the Choir. Translated by Alison Anderson. New York, NY: Europa Editions, 2024.

Tough book. Hard to read at points. Like Sally Rooney’s books, it makes me glad, so glad, to be old, to have had a childhood without an all-encompassing computer in my pocket.

Quote, which I could build an entire week in seminar around:

Tulathimutte, Tony. Rejection: Fiction. First edition. New York: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2024.

Loved this book. Love any book that tries to dig into the roots of current fads and provide genuine depth.

Inspiring concluding paragraph:

Chayka, Kyle. The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

The main character describing his father:

I felt my love for him gather itself up — as heavy and as solid as a stone — in my chest. The talented historian who managed to remain independent, part of that silent army that exists in every country, made up of individuals who had come to the conclusion that they live among unreasonable compatriots and therefore must, like grownups in a playground, endure the chaos until the bell rings, resigned to the fact that this may come long after they are gone.

Matar, Hisham. My Friends. First U.S. edition. New York: Random House, 2024.

“There’s something about the faces of everyone in my family…I think you can see in our eyes the kind of sadness, which is in two places at once — mourning the past, grieving the future. Sad in a historically significant and visually satisfying way. Looking sad like it’s your job.”

Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla. Catalina. First edition. New York: One World, 2024.