40. Vaim Hotel by Jon Fosse (tr. Damion Searls). Always love Fosse’s anguished interior monologues, a pleasure like no other, but wondering if these novellas will feel more complete read all together as one.

39. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. Parking all its obvious *problems*, holy fuck the prose here, utterly spellbinding and immersive. Can see how much influence this has had on subsequent fiction, particularly Ballard.

38. Imperium by Christian Kracht (tr. Daniel Bowles). A sly South Seas fable in which one man’s utopian enthusiasm becomes shipwrecked on the island of reality, anticipating the darkness of the twentieth century.

37. The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio (tr. Rahul Bery). A brilliant and enthralling pastiche of Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde that takes us from Edinburgh to a descent into war-induced madness in a lighthouse in Argentina.

36. Yesterday by Ágota Kristóf (tr. David Watson). There is always a stark beauty to Kristóf’s pared prose even if its perennial theme of dislocation is always hard to bear.

i was surprised by Christopher Nolan’s casting of Antony Gormley as the cyclops

35. Lázár by Nelio Biedermann (tr. Jamie Bulloch). A promising debut (even if it sometimes reads as poor literary pastiche) but let’s hope he doesn’t go the same way as the other twentyish year old wunderkind who made a splash with a novel set in twentieth century central Europe.

34. Island on the Edge of the World by Charles Maclean. Preparatory reading for my voyage to the last holdout of Celtic communism. Its initial publication in 1972 after the failure of the sixties protest movements was an auspicious moment to reflect on St Kilda’s history.

33. After Year Zero by Fredric Jameson @versobooks.bsky.social An idiosyncratic and erudite tour of post-war German philosophy in an uncharacteristically conversational tone for big Fred since it’s based on his lectures. Must get its French predecessor.

32. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More by Alexei Yurchak. One of the best history books I’ve read; a brilliant explanatory conceit and rich with extraordinary anecdotes that offer a vivid insight into everyday life under late socialism.

31. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky (tr. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky). A typically incendiary portrait of mania from the master.

me psyching myself up to work in the bookshop knowing full well it’s just going to be another day selling copy after copy of Yesteryear

yer 4th July fireworks displays have nothing on Paisley’s Sma Shot Day where they burn a boss they won more money out of in 1856

30. Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky (tr. Bryan Karetnyk). These utterly effusive sketches function as literary icons, writing these figures into mythology in real time, which strikes me as a peculiarly Russian trait in its deifying of historical actors.

29. The Master of Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee. It’s a ballsy move to centre your novel on one of the great novelists but Coetzee is still able to make a worthy fiction of his own by imagining Dostoyevsky’s confrontation with death, art and political martyrdom.

i also enjoy big Fred suggesting his students read one of his essays while admitting he can’t actually remember what he says in it

it’s reassuring that not even Fredric Jameson has a fucking clue what Heidegger is on about

28. Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark. To apply John Peel’s description of The Fall to Muriel Spark’s late work: always different, always the same and enjoyably so.

27. The Oak and the Larch by Sophie Pinkham. An erudite exploration of Russia through its forests and their hold on the mythical imagination. A highlight of my reading year thus far, a cornucopia of literary delights.

26. Kieron Smith, boy by James Kelman. Review to come.

25. Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette (tr. Donald Nicholson-Smith). An effortlessly cool femme female sets all the bourgeoisie of a village against each other, climaxing in a bloodbath; what’s not to love?

24. Raveheart by Graeme Armstrong. Review to come.

check the size of this beast

23. A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. Reads like Reddit Borges (pejorative), severely shortchanging the philosophical fecundity of its source material. Baffled by the hype, wary of BookTok becoming the future for literary criticism if it’s championing books like this.

22. Your Name Here by Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff. The literary equivalent of Southland Tales: the eagerly awaited, overambitious follow up to a critically lauded debut that attempts to meet the post-9/11 moment while interrogating the limitations of its medium to do so.

found an interview with Laszlo Krasznahorkai where he describes encountering the Burryman

fine, i’ll do the 100 novels thing. i haven’t repeated any authors and have started with the early gateway books that shaped me then the rest is a free for all.

21. Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard. A corporate elite constructing a gated tech utopia who get their libidinal kicks from fascist violence and child sex rings? Tell me it isn’t true!

20. The Illuminated Man by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan. Pierces the steely carapace of Ballard’s persona as well as being quietly innovative in a genre that isn’t typically seen as experimental by pushing at its limits and dismantling its faux-objectivity.