Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky

Girls Against God by Jenny Hval

The Care Manifesto by The Care Collective

Breasts and Eggs by Kawakami Mieko

The Missing by Sarah Langan

Gulp by Mary Roach

And rereading:

A Lover's Discourse and Image Music Text by Roland Barthes

Ghosts of My Life by Mark Fisher

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

#books #barrygrahamauthor

—Barry Graham

graham at fastmail dot fm

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Authors are, with few exceptions, worthless scum. But, knowing that, even I was flaggergasted recently when I picked up a collection of stories by Chekhov, with an introduction by Richard Ford, and found the book had a biography of Ford... but not of Chekhov.

One of the few exceptions to the rule of authorial narcissism is the Icelandic novelist and poet Sjon, who, as editor of the Nordic writing anthology Dark Blue Winter Overcoat, didn't include any of his own work.

#chekhov #richardford #narcissism #authors #writers #sjon #books #fiction #barrygrahamauthor

—Barry Graham

graham at fastmail dot fm

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Today is publication day for the French translation of my book on Zen practice, Kill Your Self, published by Pocket as La Vie Apres L'Ego. A deep bow of thanks to Mikael Demets, Charlotte Lefevre, Elise Boulay and Ghizlaine Guevel.

#zen #buddhism #meditation #mindfulness #barrygrahamauthor #dogobarrygraham #lavieapreslego

—Barry Graham

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I like Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but I love this graphic short story published in The Guardian. Beautiful, sad, compassionate and unsentimental.

#markhaddonauthor #graphicfiction #comics #socialdistancing #covid19 #coronavirus #shortstory #barrygrahamauthor

—Barry Graham

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I first read this novel two years ago, and thought it one of the best I'd read in the last decade. Last year, I went to Reykjavik, where it's set, to get married, and it turned out to be my favourite city I've ever visited. That love of Iceland, and the awfulness of COVID-19, made me decide to reread it recently, and I liked it even better the second time.

It's set in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic. The protagonist is an orphaned teenage boy who lives with an elderly relative, sells sex to local men and visiting sailors, and has two obsessions: cinema, and a local girl. Then the virus arrives and spreads through the cinema crowds.

This is a short novel that tells a huge story of loneliness, class, secrets, love and friendship. It's grim and beautiful, and a book for the present time.

#sjon #barrygrahamauthor #books #fiction #bookreview #reykjavik #iceland #pandemic #covid19 #spanishflu1918

—Barry Graham

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A few years ago I read a personal essay by the author of a popular book in the “misery memoir” genre. In the essay, the author described their lowest moment as being when they were jogging past a McDonald's and saw the employees watching and laughing. The author was horrified that “even” people working at McDonald's felt able to mock them. If only those proles knew who they were laughing at!

This kind of grandiosity is, in my experience, more common among authors than not. I've long suspected that the reason authors are so self-important is that we know how unimportant our work really is.

If there's anything positive about the pandemic, it's that it brings home whose work really matters. You can't eat books.

#classism #elitism #narcissism #personalessays #miserymemoirs #covid19 #pandemic #authors #writers

—Barry Graham

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