Reading Well: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I bought Ted Chiang‘s Exhalation on the recommendation of a friend without knowing much about it. I was expecting a novel, but instead this is a collection of nine short stories, published in 2019, and covering stories published from 2007 to 2015.

I’m glad to have read it–I fell off the short story wagon a few decades ago, and it was a nice reminder of how enjoyable of a ride they can provide.

Chiang’s stories are wide-ranging, but generally fall in the category of “idea-based science fiction.” I wrote about this briefly in my musings on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time trilogy, but it essentially means that the intellectual ideas behind the stories are dominant over other considerations. Chiang’s ideas will stay with you far longer than individual characters or scenes will (that is not to imply those things are bad, just that the creative force of his ideas are better).

This collection centers in many ways around the question of what it means to be considered alive or human in different contexts with the longest story, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, explicitly wrestling with the question of when programmed consciousness can be considered equivalent to “real” personhood. My favorite story was Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, which very cleverly intertwines quantum superposition with some of the traditional concerns of time-travel narratives, and is one of the few entries in the collection that presents characters that remain memorable after its conclusion.

Exhalation is a solid, thought-provoking, quick read. Recommended.

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Listen/Here: Am Are by Bugge Wesseltoft

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Welcome to a new feature!

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to echo some of my writing about books a read in writing about music I listen to. The challenge is there is Just.So.Much of it. So here’s what I’ve settled on: somewhat randomly picking one of the recent albums I’ve purchased (yes, I still purchase music–you should, too if you can: more money goes to the artist when you do it. You don’t even need to listen to it–just buy the album on Bandcamp and then stream it however you want).

Anyhow, I’ll pick an album, listen to it all the way through (which is a fun pleasure for me that I rarely allow myself), and scribble some thoughts.

First up, we have Am Are by Bugge Wesseltoft (wikipedia). I first encountered Wessletoft in a very odd way: he was the star of a curated playlist on Turkish Airlines in 2015 or thereabouts. I feel in love with the driving, rhythmic momentum of his compositions, which sit somewhere between jazz and dance music (if either category actually exists).

Am Are is a 2025 release, and a pretty good representation of what I know of Wesseltoft’s work: (mostly) ensemble pieces with a propulsive drive centered around his keyboard work and a rhythm section that often sounds on the very edge of Middle Eastern.

A couple notes on individual tracks: the album opens with How?, a lovely, lyrical solo piano piece. Is Anyone Listening is the rare vocal track on Wessesltoft’s recordings, and Render is the most atmospheric on the album, drifting just to the edge of ambient.

ReiN and ThinkaHeaD are more typical, with the latter being the most compositionally interesting, containing a middle section that is somewhere between field recordings and a long drone before its ultimate resolution.

The title track is the best of all of the worlds: melodic and lyrical themes dancing on tightly knit ensemble work.

Wesseltoft’s recordings are rarely challenging, but they are almost always thoroughly engaging and enjoyable. High recommendation, both for this album and his back catalog.

Favorite Track: Am Are

Am Are (2025).

Bugge Wesseltoft– Piano, Synthesisers, organ, Fender Rhodes
Elias Tafjord – Drums
Rohey Taalah – Vocal
Martin Myhre Olsen – Saxophone
Arild Andersen – Acoustic Bass, Effects
Gard Nilssen – Drums
Sveinung Hovensjø – Electric Bass
Jon Christensen – Drums and Bells
Jens Mikkel Madsen – Acoustic Bass
Øyunn – Drums
Oddrun Lilja – Guitar
Sanskriti Shrestha – Tablas, Harp

Bandcamp

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Reading Well: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

How much do you love Oxford and how much are you fascinated by linguistic etymology?

The answers to those questions will scale directly with your enjoyment of R.F. Kuang‘s 2022 novel, Babel.

Set in a parallel 19th century, Babel exists in a world where British colonialism–which in the novel is rampant in historically accurate ways–is fueled by an arcane process where silver may be inscribed with words from multiple languages, producing magical effects manifesting the often subtle differences in meaning between the terms.

That can be hard to wrap your head around: essentially, you can inscribe words on pieces of silver, making them powerful magical objects, and doing so depends on a level of native comfort with multiple languages. Roll with it.

Oxford University is the center of study, research, development, production, and maintenance of these silver bars and this generates an inherent conflict: English society is dismissive and judgmental of the rest of the world, but also desperately needs their linguistic skill to keep the global gears of the silver industry turning. Vitally, these arcane artifacts are the true engine of Empire, more in trade than in pure military might, but for sure along both axes.

Into this setting step four first-year students, three from the diaspora and one native to England. They bond, struggle with the academics, bond some more, and develop a first-hand insight into the corrupt nature of empire and the utter disregard with which the colonizing power holds the people of the colonies. Resistance ensues.

For me, it … almost works. Babel is an odd book, often pedantic, full of footnotes that seem overly intent on proving that it is on the “correct side of history,” but also compelling and insightful. The insights into early capitalism and the exploitative nature of empire are spot-on, and the emotional lives of the quartet of characters are effectively and deeply drawn.

And I’m a bit of a language nerd. So it all worked.

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Reading Well: The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

Posted on May 17, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The Cairo Trilogy was my first encounter with Naguib Mahfouz, the only Egyptian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize (1988). The three books were originally published in quick succession, with Palace Walk released in 1956, and both Palace of Desire and Sugar Street in 1957.

The trilogy follows a multi-generation family through roughly 50 tumultuous years of Egyptian life, and the insights of them and their communities–the anger against British occupation, the complex reaction to WWII, the shape of the various Egyptian nationalist and liberation movements, all painted against everyday life of Cairo–are the most compelling parts of the novels.

It is especially poignant now, as the novels cover the initial rise of the Islamic conservativism that now dominates most American’s perceptions of Arab countries, but the books present a complex tapestry, where people pray at home and go to prayers at the Mosque and drink and cavort and maintain both openly secret and deeply repressed affairs of the heart and body. Even in English translation, Mahfouz’ ability to capture the complexity of everyday life shines through: Islam is everywhere in the books, but belief varies considerably, a context that can be quite challenging to convey.

The books speed up as you go: Palace Walk moves at a very slow pace, immersing the reader in the daily rhythms of the life of a well to do Cairo household, and especially on the impacts of its dominant patriarch on the rest of the family. By the time Sugar Street rolls around, years are covered in sentences, and we have moved on to later generations, although the long shadow of the original patriarch still falls over the lives of the characters.

If you’re a fan of historical fiction with an interest in the first half of the 20th century, it’s recommended. If you have any interest Egypt and the Islamic Middle East, even more so.

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Reading Well: Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Back before I treated multibook series as single entries, I wrote about Jesmyn Ward‘s Salvage the Bones, Where the Line Bleeds, and Sing, Unburied, Sing. I’m a fan. As such, I was greatly looking forward to her 2023 novel, Let Us Descend.

For me, it did not disappoint.

Let Us Descend is a slave narrative, detailing a woman’s life, initially on a plantation, then through a forced march to New Orleans and the auction block, and finally to enslaved life on a sugar plantation outside the city. It’s not an easy read–but of course it’s not supposed to be an easy read. But it’s a worthwhile one.

Ward’s prose remains scintillatingly inventive, full of a rare level of creativity and lyricism that manages to remain emotionally direct. And the emotional core of the characters–especially the protagonist’s relationship with her mother, grand-mother, and a somewhat capricious matrilineal ghost/goddess are deftly and clearly drawn. Of special power is Ward’s depiction of the natural world, of the storms of the Gulf Coast and, particularly, its flora, both gardened and wild.

I have a very trusted friend who found Let Us Descend too brutal for their taste, but I found humanity in its pages, and in that humanity, hope. But you do need to know what you’re stepping into: there is cruelty and blood and brutality and the horror of the daily fact of an enslaved life on full and powerful display. There is also resistance and love and friendship and power.

Recommended.

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Reading Well: Blue in Green by Wesley Brown

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Wesley Brown‘s Blue in Green (2022) is a fictionalized retelling of a key moment in the life of Miles Davis. It is August, 1959, just over a week after the release of the magnificent, majestic, masterpiece Kind of Blue. Miles is standing outside of a club in New York City when an encounter with the police quickly escalates into a violent assault.

Brown’s novella details Miles’ reaction to that event, wandering over his own history, his key relationships, and his thoughts about where he is musically and where he’s going. Along the way, Brown offers his conception of Davis’ interactions with John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and other key figures in the 1950s and 1960s New York jazz scene.

Reviewing Blue in Green is easy: if you have any interest in the subject matter, read it. It’s short, it’s electric, it’s evocative, and it’s illuminating. Brown has done his research, and knows the stories of the people in Miles’ life, and his ear for dialog is finely-honed. Special mention must be made of his treatment of Frances Taylor, a figure at times overshadowed by Miles’ more public and (equally) tempestuous relationship with Cicely Tyson (we reviewed Tyson’s memoir here).

I read Quincy Troupe’ s amazing Miles: The Autobiography in the early 1990s. If you want a deep dive into the genius of Miles Davis and into the dizzying twists and turns of his life, read that. But, afterwards, read Blue in Green. It will stay with you equally, coloring your sense of Miles with a narrative touch.

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Reading Well: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I’ve always been a devotee of Barbara Kingsolver (see prior writeups of Unsheltered and Prodigal Summer), but had largely assumed the crowning achievement of her illustrious career would be 1998’s The Poisonwood Bible. Enter 2022’s Demon Copperhead, a novel of similarly stunning breadth and power and even more immediacy.

Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens‘ David Copperfield, but don’t let that give you pause–I last read Dickens decades ago, and familiarity with his works is in no way a requirement to dive into Kingsolver’s far more contemporary novel, which is set in Appalachia during the initial waves of the opioid crisis–most likely the 1990’s and/or early 2000’s.

Demon–named for both his attitude and his reddish, kinky hair–spends much of his youth moving in and out of various foster homes, searching for a chosen family and enough stability to build an adolescence free of imminent risk, with only occasional success. A sports injury diverts him into a dependency on opioids, and the accompanying social groups do nothing to help him recover. There are a constellation of secondary characters–adults who care, adults who don’t, peers who care for Demon, peers who look to manipulate him, others in whom Demon places unwarranted faith. In other words, a thickly believable social context, especially for late adolescence.

The novel slows down once Demon is taking pain killers–a reflection of the state of addiction that, I think, works as a narrative device, but is striking in comparison to the somewhat breakneck prior plot. That, and the preternatural sophistication of Demon’s younger voice may be obstacles for some, but I think they are well worth overcoming.

The power of Demon Copperhead is the depiction of rural America, of the struggles and challenges of its people, and of the immense humanity of deeply flawed characters. It’s a masterpiece, very strongly recommended.

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Reading Well: Bob the Gambler by Frederick Barthelme and Double Down by Frederick Barthelme & Steven Barthelme

Posted on April 3, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Donald Barthelme is easily the most famous of the clan, but his brothers, Frederick and Steven, were also writers, English professors by profession and somewhat degenerate gamblers by choice. I read Bob the Gambler by Frederick (1997) first, and enjoyed it so much that I immediately located a copy of Double Down (1999), which I’ll discuss first.

Double Down is the joint memoir by both brothers, focusing on the years after the death of their parents (roughly a decade after Donald’s death to cancer). Their father, a somewhat renowned architect and early adopter of post-brutalist modernism, seems a profoundly difficult man, demanding and idiosyncratic, and there are unresolved gestures towards emotional abuse. Their mother, in contrast, is portrayed as the source of emotional solace, safety, and comfort in the family.

Ultimately for me, while often moving, the portrayal of the parents is lacking: the mix of the utterly binary nature of their roles in the boys’ psyches and the lack of compelling detail on where the great pain around their father’s behavior comes from leaves the picture far too incomplete for a book that is so … Freudian … in its structure (by that, I mean that the narrative itself presents the parental dynamics as the key to understanding who they are, then refuses to fully disclose those same dynamics; so, yeah, Freudian).

The brothers are both childless, teaching at the same university, and somewhat unsure of what’s next for them. Enter the newly-opened casinos along the Gulf Coast.

They go on a whim, instantly see the appeal of the flashing lights and potential riches. Their grief over their parents fuels their behavior, aided not insignificantly by their inheritance, which increases their tolerance for loss from a hundreds of dollars to thousands and, ultimately, tens of thousands.

This makes them favorites of the casino, with the enhanced treatment that carries with it, the sense of camaraderie with staff, the free rooms and easy access to markers to fuel more gambling. They are both aware of what is happening, and convinced that this strategy, this ritual, this bankroll management notion, will be the key to turning it all around.

And then, quite suddenly, the entire narrative is interrupted by a very strange set of occurrences, where the brothers are charged with felony crimes by the casino, which believes them to be part of a ring trying to “cheat the house.” The accusation seems ludicrous, given how much they consistently lose (and the charges are eventually dismissed), but the repercussions are serious–legal challenges, holding cells, the uncertainty of the future. Serious enough they stop gambling for a while, and serious enough that the memoir narrative is essentially derailed.

It all makes for a somewhat interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling read for me.

Which is in strong contrast to Bob the Gambler, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The narrative of this easy-to-read novella follows much of the memoir: the protagonist lives on the Gulf Coast, tries the casinos on a lark, quickly becomes a committed gambler.

But the story is anchored in a family that is portrayed with such skill and sweetness, especially the core trio of the protagonist, his partner, and his step-daughter, that there is a balance to the unmitigated loss of control that comes along with the gambling.

Yes, they lose everything. But they do it together and, if you will, intentionally. Yes, it puts their careers in jeopardy. But they make reasonable choices in light of that. And through it all, the family cares for each other, clearly prioritizing that above all (well, most) else.

It’s such a departure from the usual gambling fare, which either leaves the character in abject misery or phenomenal wealth. If there is a quibble, it’s tied to the ambiguity of the ending. But endings are hard, and I understand the choices made.

So … a strong recommendation for Bob the Gambler, if that kind of narrative subject appeals. And a much more tepid recommendation for Double Down, essentially only if you’re somewhat of a completist on gambling memoirs or have a particular obsession with the Barthelmes.

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Reading Well: The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The Fraud, Zadie Smith‘s 2023 novel, is a bit of a departure for her: it is a historical novel, focusing on real people and real events in the late 19th century, specifically the household of the once-acclaimed writer William Harrison Ainsworth and the phenomenon of the Tichborne trial.

The Fraud is also a reflection on aging, tracing the characters over many decades of their lives and an exploration of the 19th century relations between England and its Caribbean colonies, specifically Jamaica.

It succeeds on all fronts.

That it does is a tribute to Smith’s consummate skill as a novelist, to her ability to draw characters and events in sharp lines while not sacrificing the nuance and inflection that makes people real, complicated, and compelling. It is a novel of doubt and uncertainty, and one that resists making pronouncements on any of its characters: even Ainsworth’s vanity and self-obsession are somewhat evened out in the eyes of the protagonist. As such, the use of the Tichborne trial–where an (alleged) imposter returns to claim a fortune–is masterful, both in the enigmatic Jamaican character it introduces and how it amplifies the core question of identity within the novel. In the end–as in reality–the questions of who am I and who are we remain unanswerable, especially if divorced from any particular moment in time.

There is also a delightful and occasionally effectively comedic set of cameos by Charles Dickens, whose success and particular eccentricities loom over Ainsworth’s continued struggles.

I mean … it’s Zadie Smith. If the description piques your interest at all, go read it.

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Reading Well: The Bloodsworn Trilogy by John Gwynne

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Daniel (@MKNN)

John Gwynne‘s Bloodsworn Trilogy contains The Shadow of the Gods (2021), The Hunger of the Gods (2022), and The Fury of the Gods (2024).

My guess is most of you who will absolutely adore this trilogy already know about it, and have been waiting anxiously for Gwynne to publish the somewhat-delayed final volume. The delay is a product of a tragedy: the death of a young child, and honestly I’m quite impressed that Gwynne finished the story, given that.

These are long, blood-soaked sagas of novels, heavily inspired by, if not the Vikings themselves, certainly the modern-day reinvention of the Vikings. While perhaps a bit repetitive by the end of the 3rd book–there are only but so many ways to describe a hand ax being buried in a foe’s cranium–overall, they deliver.

The series follows perhaps a dozen characters, all pulled into a massive conflict between long-dead Gods come to life. There are protagonists on all sides of the conflict, but one certainly both stands out and is highlighted, and her journey, as a warrior, as a mother, as a friend, make the text quite compelling.

Gwynne also does something magical, something that in my experience is virtually unique in the genre. He just … ignores … biological differences when it comes to physical capacities. It’s actually brilliant and remarkable: he doesn’t have women being overpowered by men, nor does he have a quicker, more subtle, fighting style that suits women better. Instead, if he wants a character to be the biggest swinging ax on the battlefield, they just are, regardless of their gender. It’s liberating, in a very fun way.

There are some gestures to situating the characters in a thoroughly pre-modern state, where the notion of consciousness is just beginning to emerge … but that is both inconsistent and deeply secondary to the page-turning, heart-thumping spectacle, risk, and carnage. If that sounds good–and you don’t mind devoting well over 1,500 pages in total to a single massive narrative arc–you’ll enjoy these books.

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