Reading Well: The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison

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

I’m quickly becoming a Katherine Addison fan, having thoroughly enjoyed both The Goblin Emperor and its two psuedo-sequels, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones. Those lead me to her 2020 novel, The Angel of the Crows.

It was not at all what I expected. I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but a recasting of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes himself is an angel (wings and all) of ambiguous status, Watson is a hell-hound named Doyle, and Moriarty is a vampire was not on my bingo card.

It is–of course–derivative, and Doyle and the Angel revisit many of Holmes’ more famous cases, all the while also investigating the horrific activities of Jack the Ripper. But it works: the characters are somehow unique, in spite of their reliance on the source material, and the escapades never feel forced, or like they are constrained by Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings.

Addison describes The Angel of the Crows as having emerged from a particular sub-genre of fan fiction called wingfic, where a character in an existing is given wings, and things go from there.

It’s compelling and thoroughly enjoyable if you like Holmes, mysteries, and a dollop of fantasy.

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Listen/Here: SPIN by Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin

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

Welcome to installment #2 of Listen/Here. As a reminder, I’m picking randomly from recently purchased albums and writing short reviews, modeled, somewhat, on the Reading Well posts.

Today, we’re listening to SPIN, a 2024 release from Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin (spelled Baertsch in locales that don’t use an umlaut–including his website. Here is his wikipedia page.)

I don’t remember when I first ran across Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin (it’s a bit of an awkward moniker, but there ya’ go), but I think it was about a decade ago. The music made me sit up and take notice: there is something about it that elevates it above the field. It’s clearly highly structured–Bärtsch calls each piece a modul, and they are simply numbered, and I think every track I’ve heard has a repetitive, propulsive, build to it, constructed around Bärtsch’s keyboard work, but always sharing the spotlight, especially with Sha on reeds.

These are long-form compositions, ranging from 10 (ish) to 15 (ish) minutes each, totally instrumental.

Bärtsch’s moduls feel like what might happen if jazz and post-rock had a wonderfully gifted child who was strongly attracted to structure, form, and rhythmic play. That’s right up my ally.

I suspect the secret sauce is jazz, that is, while there aren’t really traditional jazz structures here–no extended solos, for example–there is a complexity, a resistance to strict repetition and an overall attention that craft that speaks, I would guess, to training steeped deeply in those traditions.

It’s all a bit enthralling, especially when, as in Modul 66, Modul 70-51 (evidently a reworking of an earlier piece–IDK, I’m not that deep into the lore of Ronin and the moduls), the groove gets going. This also happens in spectacular fashion in the second halves of Modul 14 and Modul 23.

Favorite Track: There is what may very well be a weakness of the project in that, ultimately, there is a similarity that makes them hard to distinguish. But the second half of Modul 23 is such a great build and finale, I’ll go with that.

SPIN (2024).

Nik Bärtsch: piano, keyboard
Sha: bass clarinet, alto saxophone
Jeremias Keller: bass
Kaspar Rast: drums

Bandcamp

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Reading Well: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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

A little way into Emily Tesh‘s 2023 science fiction novel Some Desperate Glory, I did not think I would enjoy it.

But Tesh pulls off a very tricky shift, changing the narrative from a revolutionary narrative to one layered with a lovely take on the usual challenges of time travel.

The protagonist starts as a fairly heavily brainwashed star-in-the-making and designated future leader of a fairly authoritarian space colony. It’s all a bit heavy-handed, and the fact that the leaders of this colony are–despite her deeply held beliefs–clearly not the good guys is telegraphed very early and very obviously.

And then … it all shifts. I don’t want to give it away, but it’s handled with an intelligence and deft touch that makes me think the bluntness of the opening chapters is quite intentional. It won’t work for everyone, but it worked for me, turning Some Desperate Glory into a page-turner as the protagonists struggle to figure out if–and if so, how–they may avoid the pitfalls of their original future. She does so while probing the nature of family ties and friendship, and while maintaining sympathy for a range of the primary characters, despite some fundamental disagreements between them. I like that a lot.

If a phrase like their original future intrigue you, read it–for fans of sci-fi with a focus on time travel, it’s strongly recommended.

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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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