Han Kang, We Do Not Part. I had to take this one slowly. "Human Acts" (which I'd recommend reading first) showed how trauma lingers for a lifetime; this captures how it filters through to subsequent generations. For all the horror, it's also lyrical, even hopeful.

Claire-Louise Bennett, Pond. "English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way. I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things." Joyously peculiar.

Ian Penman, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors. "It may not be a coincidence that Fassbinder's films are among the most acute depictions of loneliness in modern cinema... a loneliness all the harsher and sharper for being surrounded by people; a loneliness in the bustle of the crowd..."

Just saw the Super Kabuki version of Princess Mononoke and it’s pretty wild. Incredible stagecraft, even if it occasionally felt like watching panto.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes. I think I prefer Ishiguro's novels to his short stories (his characters somehow get less annoying the more time you spend with them), but "Come Rain or Come Shine" is a glorious comic miniature.

Maria Reva, Endling. A story of snails and the marriage industry in Ukraine turns into something very different when Russia launches its full-scale invasion. A brave (and often funny) answer to the question of how fiction should respond to real-life catastrophes.

I would’ve preferred to see Erykah Badu with her regular drummer yesterday, but last-minute replacement Yukino Matsuura did an amazing job considering he was called in on the day of the show.

Heather Lewis, Notice. This was brutal. A relentless spiral of degradation and (mostly bad) sex, narrated with a cool gaze that never flinches, even when you wish it would.

Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto. You can really feel how much fun Whitehead is having with this series. A pulpy page-turner, brimming with good one-liners, that's also a chronicle of political corruption and urban decay.

The Suginami local elections have entered a weird endgame. I’m sure this is just a way for the leading candidates to get around restrictions on campaign posters, but it’s left them looking like they all hired the same PR firm.

Kiki’s Delivery Service in IMAX: the improvements are more discernible in the sound mix than the visuals, but just watching it on a humongous screen is glorious in itself.

Mathias Enard, Zone. Enard's single-sentence epic makes more concessions to the reader than I'd expected (there are chapters!). Still amazed that I got through this as quickly as I did, though. (It's great, btw.)

Maryse Condé, Segu. Really engrossing, multi-generational saga about the forces vying for supremacy in an African kingdom during the first half of the 19th century.

Here’s a brief snippet from apöpa and Otomo Yoshihide’s set at Bush Bash last night. Absolutely barmy.

Nikolai Gogol, And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon. If you're Gogol-curious (as I was), this is an excellent place to start. Now I see where Bulgakov learned his moves.

Olga Ravn, The Wax Child. 17th-century Danish witch trials, told from the perspective of an all-knowing, inanimate narrator. Strong Tokarczuk vibes.

Terrie Ex & Paal Nilssen-Love with Incapacitants at Earthdom tonight was pure silliness.

Liadan Ní Chuinn, Every One Still Here. A brutally good debut collection.

Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume II. Loving these books so far. The world looks different after reading them.

Julian Barnes, Departure(s). The author signs off with an elegant meditation on memory, mortality and rekindled romance. I highlighted the shit out of this one.

Daniyal Mueenuddin, This Is Where the Serpent Lives. An imperfect epic.

This quote from the NYT piece on Fujiyoshida’s overtourism problem made me feel very old.

Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt. Aunt Augusta would get along well with some of the cast of The Hearing Trumpet (see above).

Florence Knapp, The Names. Like Sliding Doors crossed with the 7 Up series. Compulsively readable, even if it seemed to lose a little rigour as it went along.

Please make it stop.

More Necks magic. This is from the second set.

The Necks at Cafe Oto, Saturday afternoon. First time I’ve seen them play here, and it really feels like the ideal venue for them.

Here’s one of my pictures of Nagahisa that didn’t end up getting used. He knows how to strike a pose.

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts. An amazing meditation on love, gender, motherhood and ass-fucking that I wish I'd read far sooner. Nelson's description of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as "almost sadistically intelligent" could equally apply to herself.

Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. AKA Chūnibyō: The Novel.