Lou
Despite the title, this book isn't really about transness at all, though the author's transness certainly informs it. The best way I can describe it is a retrospective on the Covid-era through a revolutionary leftist lense, written as a mixture of essays, poems, and autobiographical narrative. Which in itself is interesting, since I had yet to come across a retrospective on the pandemic with genuinely novel points to make, not the same tired cliches (it was "unprecedented", etc. etc.) I've also noticed a certain unwillingness in myself to engage with writing about the Covid-era, because I'd prefer to pretend it had no effect on my life whatsoever and simply move on. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dysphoria Mundi, despite it's heavy focus on the Covid era, didn't bring out those feelings of avoidance and memories of the rhetoric of the time. It felt like the kind of retrospective that can only happen once a certain amount of time has passed.
Now for the bad. I didn't care at all for the writing style. I found that the author's copius use of deliberately provocative and badly defined terms like "pharmacopornographic" and "petrosexoracial" to describe anything and everything was both annoying and heavily obfuscated his meaning. I'm all for making up terminology to better communicate a point, but this wasn't it. My favourite chapters were either the more autobiographical ones, or the ones where he made narrower and more pointed arguments, like the one on historical monuments. Unfortunately, this was not the majority, and as a result there were several points where I just gave up and skipped ahead to the start of the next chapter. The author also clearly likes to make philosophical observations out of wordplay, which at times felt clever, and at times made me roll my eyes. This book is clearly intended for a particular audience, and even as a university educated trans person with leftest views, I don't seem to be that audience. Which makes me wonder what the point of this book is in a revolutionary sense. I don't think I'd dissuade someone who's interest this book piques from giving it a try, but for me it was mostly a slog.
Half a star off for being a bit abelist. Though I think there is space left for the reader to disagree with the characters' pretty bleak perspective on Edith's disability and it could be argued that this is even implicitly encouraged. This book so wonderfully captures complex human emotions and has that trademark whirlwind feeling writing style of Zweig's that just pulls you along. It manages to be a page turner, despite having little in the way of action. I think any enjoyer of Zweig's other works won't be disappointed by this one.
I was assigned a chapter of this book in university, loved it, and only now got around to actually reading the book it came from. This is one of those nonfiction books that explains why the modern world is the way it is in a way that just rings true. A bit dry at times, sure, but on the whole this book is accessibly written for an academic text, while also being impressively precise in its argument (ie. the author doesn't make logical leaps to impose his worldview on the reader or to apply it to broader contexts, but there is room left for readers to do that themselves). I'll add that this was basically my whole urban studies degree in a nutshell. Clearly multiple of my professors were very influenced by James Scott's work. I think that everybody should read this book and cannot recommend it highly enough.
Beautiful prose, but the lack of any plot made this tough to finish. I also never really bought into the main character, who felt very, "woman written by a man." I suppose this book has some interesting things to say about nostalgia and modernization, but I found I Served The King of England by the same author a far better read.
I picked this book up because of the beautiful cover and because I'm facinated by the interwar period in europe. The highlight for me was Hrabal's stream of consciousness writing style, which conveys motion in an an exaggerated, almost comical manner. I'm sure the translator is also owed some credit here. This is a page turner and I finished it in under a week. For anyone that loves hotels, it's definitely worth a read.
Each chapter is a biography of a historical queer person: long enough to be pretty detailed, but short enough not to be boring. I don't think the book always stuck to it's premise of "bad" gays, that is, figures who aren't usually remembered in terms of their gayness and aren't claimed by the queer community because they would make us look bad. Some, like Aretino, were by the authors' own admission not particularly "bad", and others, like Röhm, while definetly "bad", are very much talked about in terms of their gayness. I also think this book was pretty light on analysis and oftentimes the analysis that was there, while always true and good, didn't really contribute to a larger argument. Still, the conversational tone makes this a pretty easy read for a nonfiction book and it would probably have been far more impactful for someone who hasn't already done a lot of reading about queer history. I feel like most of my criticism comes from already having read about certain historical figures in more detail elsewhere, which I can't really fault the book for. If you're on the fence, I'd give it a go since it was certainly enjoyable.
PIcked this up while visiting Leeds because it was written by a local author. I found the writing style compelling, with an interesting blend of realistic settings and speculative futures. My only critique would be that a lot of the stories ended quite abruptly with no apparent point to them. I don't typically read short stories though, so this may just be my lack of appreciation for the format.
I had 3 false starts with this book, but I'm glad I stuck it out. Set in Austria during the interwar period, this is a story about how a life of meaningless work under capitalism suffocates one's true potential, and the unbearability of that realization once you have it. Disconcertingly relatable after months of unsuccessfully looking for work in 2025. As usual, Zweig's writing style is evocative and engaging.
This book would have been better if it were one third of the length. At first I was really liking the surreal tone and working out what was actually going on. It felt like a solvable puzzle. But then it dragged on and I realized that nothing was ever going to become clearer. There are huge sections of this book that are just rambling dialogue with no plot relevance. The brief chapters that do seem to be leading up to something are hardly followed up on. I have no issues with a book that keeps the reader in the dark, but this one went a little too far to the point where it hindered my enjoyment.
I thoughroughly enjoyed this book, though the main romance had less turmoil, and therefore less payoff than some of KJ Charles' other works. I especially liked the portrayal of Clem's autism (though it's not explicitly called that in the book, it's pretty obviously autism) and how it affects his romantic relationship. It's rare to see an autistic romance novel protagonist, far less a gay one, and Clem felt very true to life to me. The mystery was also compelling and the focus on Victotian taxidermy was interesting.
A fun Christmas romp by my favourite romance author with an associated Spotify playlist. The main characters were somewhat forgettable compared to her other books, but definetly still worth the read if you've read the Lilywhite Boys series. I liked how much historical research was clearly done for the victorian Christmas traditions.
KJ Charles is an amazing author, so the three stars is relative to her other books and not an objective rating. That said, having read almost every book she has every published, this one is firmly my least favourite. Maybe I'm biased because it's her only straight romance, but I found that Susan's "practical" personality frustrating rather than endearing and the constant focus on the gender dynamics of the relationship prevented me from getting swept up in the romance. Plus the main characters seem to have foot fetishes, which wasn't sexy to me and struck me as an odd choice. I know people made similar criticisms about KJ Charles' female characters in Proper English, but that one at least had a good mystery plot. Which leads me to my other criticism, that I didn't really enjoy the mystery in this one either. The pacing was a little odd and there were no twists. It all resolved exactly as you would expect. This book is still an enjoyable read because of KJ Charles' usual fast-paced and witty writing style, but this is the only book of hers that I considered not finishing.
This was my first Agatha Christie book, and I found it okay. The mystery was interesting and I liked that it was a classic "murder in a house" plot. The female characters were all bafflingly useless and don't feel like full human beings, which is the main reason I didn't love it. Poirot was a bit unlikable, but I'm willing to believe he's better in other books.
I really wanted to like it. The themes appeal to me and after fishing it, I read some interpretations that really tempted me to give it an extra star. It might be interesting to analyse for a university class, but none of that changes that I did not enjoy myself at all while reading this book. The way Kafka writes women makes me uncomfortable. I know all the characters are absurd, but he didn't have to make them ALL desperate to fuck the protagonist. Also, Joseph K is completely unrelatable, which may be the point, but it still made reading this quite frustrating, since he never responds to his situation how you think he should. Maybe I'd have liked it more if Kafka had actually finished the book, but as it stands it's unfortunately 2 stars.
A cute little asexual romance between a trans woman music hall singer and a well meaning but awkward fence. A very enjoyable read, though as a trans person myself, I was a bit disappointed by the trans character. Not that there was anything wrong with her characterization per se, just that it lacked a more profound understanding of the trans experience. Miss Christiana felt pretty cookie-cutter, which surprised me since KJ Charles' gay male characters are all so diverse and fleshed out.
