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What am I reading this year?

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2026 Reading Journal and Reviews:

Horror in Architecture by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing

  • 3.5/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “Structurally interdependent members often fail beautifully together, as the logic of their construction translates into a coherence of collapse.”
  • I realized about a third of the way through the book: I know basically nothing about architecture. So a lot of the references and more specific analysis went totally over my head. But as someone who knows a lot about horror, very little about architecture, and loves both those things, I really enjoyed this! It was dense in a good way and I have started to look at buildings in a whole new light. What makes them monstrous? What are they trying to warn me about?

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

  • 1.5/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “I’m dying for Ethiopia, one of the young men says. / I did nothing wrong, why am I here? a girl adds. / Tell my mother you saw me, they all plead. / The cook shakes her head and stretches out a hand to settle it on the leg of the closest one, an elderly man quivering in his worn T-shirt. You’ll die needlessly, Abbaba, she says. You’ll die for no cause, because you are innocent, and they will not remember your name.”
  • This was a very frustrating read. My main problems are these: Hirut is an unlikeable and ineffective protagonist, all of the side characters (except for Minim) have so many personality flaws it’s hard to feel sympathy for any of them, the writing style is confusing and repetitive, and for a story centered around a war it feels like nothing is accomplished in all 423 pages. I was so excited to learn more about this side of WW2 I knew nothing about, and to read a book about Black women overcoming oppression and fighting for what they believe in (The Woman King is one of my favorite movies), but this was a chore to get through. The one part I thought was extremely well done was the photographs section.

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

  • 3.5/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “We desperately want our good intentions and niceness to be enough. Although each of us is inherently “enough” to be loved, valued, cared for, and treated with respect, our efforts to raze systems of oppression and injustice will require more than our niceness. “But I am a good person; I am nice to everyone” has never toppled one systemic inequity nor interrupted the daily acts of body terrorism leveled against humans throughout history. You are enough. Being good or nice is not.”
  • This is the kind of book where I’ll read a chapter and be like “well, yes! Now that you’ve said it, it feels so obvious, I just never had the language to think about these things!” But if you gave this book to, like, a white wine mom living in rural Utah her mind would be totally blown. I enjoyed writing down and answering the “unapologetic inquiries” as I read; they were kind of self-help flavored while still feeling like worthwhile analysis of my own interpretations of the text. Radical (self love!) ideas delivered in a refreshing and accessible way.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson

  • 2.5/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: "The only thing we know for sure is that we will die one day. But before that we can try to do almost anything."
  • While I enjoyed reading this, I was hoping it would be more urgent, more explanatory– how can I get over the emotional hurdle of getting rid of objects I don’t need anymore? But it ended up being more contemplative than I was expecting. Magnusson talks more about her own life / experiences than giving methodical advice about cleaning. It’s a sweet book and definitely worth a read (especially for an older reader who is worried about how much longer they have left to live), but if you’re looking for help with systematically organizing your life, this book might not be for you.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

  • 3/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “Like each grain of sand in the pile, an individual joining the counter-collective could boost its capacity on the margin, and the counter-collective could get the better of the enemy. No more is required to maintain a minimum of hope: success is neither certain nor probable, but *possible*.”
  • Climate activism is always something I’ve had in the back of my mind. I don’t eat meat, I try to recycle where I can, and I try not to buy things I don’t need / buy secondhand when possible. Small stuff, whatever. But it’s really interesting to hear from someone who has done so much protesting and direct action. Malm’s positivity and faith in the power of the collective is very inspiring. I feel like running outside and deflating the tires of the SUVs on my street!

Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand by Ursula K. Le Guin

  • 4.5/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “Of course I pressed him to tell, and we ended up at Tom's, having a cup of coffee at the Seashell Booth. The tabletop of the front booth is a thick slab of translucent blue-green plastic with shells, corals, fan-sponges, and a tiny crab or two embedded in it. You look down into mysterious depths of plastic. All the tables were to be like that one, but the man who made it gave up after making the one, saying it was too much work. He took his payment in six-packs and grass, Tom says-- this was back in the seventies-- and went to Tillamook to sand-cast candles. His masterwork is called the Seashell Booth at Tom's. So we sat there, and I traced the dim fronts in the immobile currents while Antal told me the next chapter of the Motel Mystery.”
  • Really struggling to rate this– I’m between a 4 and 4.5 (but I feel like it’s cheating somehow to rate it a 4.25). The short stories can be incredibly tonally different which makes for a jarring reading experience. The writing style also left me confused sometimes (lots of perspectives, lots of stream-of-consciousness). But overall, there are some absolutely phenomenal pieces here. I love how everything is connected and the reader is rewarded for noticing how small details return later in new ways. I’ll be thinking about these characters for years. If anyone ever tells you that you can’t write a good short story without a central conflict / driving force, point them to Ursula K. Le Guin.

Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag

  • 3/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “Detachment is the prerogative of an elite; and as the dandy is the 19th century's surrogate for the aristocrat in matters of culture, so Camp is the modern dandyism. Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture."
  • I feel like this doesn’t even count as a book because it’s just a 50-page essay, but it was published as a book and I marked it as “read” on my Storygraph so it’s close enough! I’ve been meaning to read this for a while and for some reason it didn’t hit as hard as I hoped it would. Sontag makes a few good points but the whole piece is a little too contradictory for me… which I guess is the spirit of Camp…

The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales by H.P. Lovecraft

  • 3/5 stars
  • Favorite quote from my favorite short story (The Shadow Over Innsmouth): “Certainly, the terror of a deserted house swells in geometrical rather than arithmetical progression as houses multiply to form a city of stark desolation. The sight of such endless avenues of fishy-eyed vacancy and death, and the thought of such linked infinities of black, brooding compartments given over to cobwebs and memories and the conqueror worm, start up vestigial fears and aversions that not even the stoutest philosophy can disperse.”
  • The best way I can review this 600-page collection is with a tier list!
  • The Shadow over Innsmouth: This is everything you want out of a Lovecraft story! An erudite but active protagonist! Interesting interviews with locals! Uncanny descriptions! References to a greater power at work that you don't fully understand! The scary parts are far less abstract than the other stories which I think works to its advantage; there's a tangible threat in the citizens of Innsmouth, and *also* the intangible threat of Devil's Reef and Dagon, etc. It's the quintessential cosmic horror and the cherry on top for me is that it's ocean themed. The ending is also strangely endearing since it's so different than most other stories in this collection where the protagonists are scarred for life.
  • The Haunter of the Dark: It's not often that I read something that I feel was tailor made for me. The only real drawback I have is the racism (hey what else is new it's a Lovecraft story). Everything else is just so well done. The descriptions of exploring the abandoned church, the slow descent into madness, the theatrical way the neighborhood is forced to realize that the evil has been awoken and released into the world again-- all fantastic. I'd love to see a film adaptation of this short story. There are so many incredible and harrowing visuals here. Ended the book off on a high note!
  • The Colour out of Space: The descriptions... I want to eat them with a knife and fork... You don't need to connect the horror in this piece to any existing Old Ones lore, it works so much better as a standalone piece. The slow decay of the farm is agonizing to witness and the final scene of the dancing trees and lights is magical (and so creative for the horror genre which usually thrives in darkness.)
  • The Whisperer in Darkness: Is this analog horror? I'm pretty sure this is analog horror! Lovecraft loves writing about ineffectual academics / professors and this time it really works to his benefit. Wilmarth and Akeley are so well characterized through their distinctive pieces of writing and it's so fun to try to piece together the mystery of what's happening on Akeley's farm. It got a little too science-fictiony at the end for me but I'll give it a pass since the leadup was so good.
  • The Tree on the Hill: I would not have known this was Lovecraft's work at first. The concept is so much more straightforward than his other pieces and that makes the horror way stronger for me. I love that the horror is actually somewhat vanquished by the end and I love that the two characters have some chemistry because it makes me care about them more. They should kiss…
  • Dagon: What starts off as a fairly average cosmic horror story turns freakish and blood-chilling with the ending lines. I know the "it followed you home" trope is a trope for a reason but I think the fact that the horror seems so outlandish and far away, combined with the shock of the hand on the window makes for a really effective jumpscare at the end.
  • The Horror in the Museum: I feel like the middle really dragged and the ending was very predictable, but otherwise I really enjoyed this one. I liked that the characters actually interacted with each other instead of just spewing out monologues and I also enjoyed the buildup of the actual horror.
  • The Nameless City: This was the first Lovecraft story I ever read so I've got some nostalgia bias towards it. I think what I like most about it isn't the actual plot but the very gradual buildup. It's very poetic and meandering just like the protagonist's descent into the temple. Really freaked me out when I was younger.
  • The Hound: Have you ever wondered if Lovecraft wrote about a werewolf-vampire hybrid stalking British dandies? This is the story for you!
  • The Man of Stone: While there weren't any unique descriptions or ideas that jumped out at me, what really sets this one apart is that it starts off like an actual murder mystery that morphs into cosmic horror. And guess what? There's a female character who actually has some agency! I wish the ending wasn't just a bunch of journal entries but the saving grace really is the abusive-husband-killing.
  • The Call of Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft loves writing inactive protagonists on the outskirts of the action looking in. This story really suffers from the lack of a driving force; it's just a collection of notes and interviews. What really annoyed me was that the diary entry from the sailor is infinitely more interesting than the rest of the story and it was confined to a couple of pages.
  • The Festival: It's fine. It's just fine! I don't know there's not much to say about this one.
  • The Thing on the Doorstep: I can't tell if Azerath is an interesting transgender character or it's just some kind of fucked up homophobia / misogyny. Probably the latter. But the ending twist is fine at least.
  • The Dunwich Horror: No worthwhile descriptions. The pacing is a chore to get through. You have no sympathy for any of the characters. The plot itself is a really cool concept, of an evil family keeping a monster locked in a basement, but I'd rather just reread The Houseguest by Amparo Davila.
  • The Dreams in the Witch House: BROWN JENKINS???
  • The Mound: Some interesting ideas about the underground civilization but it's yap city the whole time and we don't even get to see any of the horror happen to any of the characters we care about. Ironically the racism towards Native Americans turned them into the only intelligent characters in the story so I guess that's a win.
  • The Shadow out of Time: I am NOT afraid of the ice cream cone army! It's a remix of a remix of a remix and there was absolutely nothing new or cool about it. Neat concept ruined by the execution.
  • The Curse of Yig: Too much phonetic spelling! Too much racism towards Native Americans! Not enough snakes!
  • Out of the Aeons: They find a mummy, the mummy is alive, also there's racism.
  • At the Mountains of Madness: I really thought this would be my jam because it's so similar to The Thing (with the sled dogs, unearthing frozen otherworldly specimens) but it's just so. Damn. Long. It's so long and there are basically only five plot points and it ends with a cool chase sequence I guess but it's too fucking long and it says nothing!!! At least Out of the Aeons was short! This one is like hey aren't penguins gross and fucked up looking!

Fantasy by Bruno Munari

  • 3/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “Back in the era when ships took a long time to cross oceans, sailors were wont to build miniatures of the ships they were sailing on (or of other ships) inside empty bottles. The models were built outside the bottle with the trees and sails folded. The vessel was then slid into the bottle while keeping threads (tied to the miniature trees) outside. The model was anchored in the proper location in a layer of stucco and then, pulling on the threads, the trees were stood up and the sails unfurled: just like opening an umbrella. Then the treads were cut. Today oceans are crossed in only a few hours and stewardesses barely have the time to empty out bottles, which is why one doesn't encounter jumbo jets in Coca-Cola bottles.”
  • I picked this up at William Stout Architectural Books in San Francisco (shoutout to the cashier who grew up a few minutes from my childhood home and who didn’t recognize Sophia Coppola when she came in the previous week). I appreciated the breakdown of “fantasy”, and different elements of art, the book felt incomplete, which Munari himself acknowledges. There were also a few sections on teaching that I wasn’t expecting. I think I wanted something slightly different but I’m happy I read it.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

  • 4/5 stars
  • Favorite quote: “May I never be complete. / May I never be content. / May I never be perfect. / Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.”
  • I wasn’t expecting this book to be so… I don’t know… doomed yaoi? I heard that it was very different from the movie (as of writing this review I still haven’t watched the movie) but I can already tell that the movie cut out a lot of the gay aspects. My favorite scene is when Tyler gives the main character a scar on his hand with a kiss. Absolutely peak. It also has a lot of interesting commentary on what I would now call the manosphere / red pill / black pill communities. In the afterword, Palahniuk said he wanted to write a book that brought men together like the Joy Luck Club (which I’ve also read) did for women. Unfortunately I think the idea of Fight Club has morphed into something Palahniuk didn’t intend after its mainstream success, but it’s still a worthwhile read.