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2024 year-in-reading

Posted on December 31, 2024January 7, 2025 by bpladek

2024 was a year of re-reading for me. This was partly because I taught two courses that allowed me to revisit favorites, but mainly because I spent most of 2024 in novel-drafting mode and so obsessively re-reading the work of my two prose benchmarks, Bryher and Glenway Wescott. As a result, I read less new…

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2023 year-in-reading + 7 Glenway Wescotts

Posted on December 28, 2023September 24, 2024 by bpladek

When I was preparing to edit this list, I lamented that 2023 was another bad reading year for me. Then I reread the list itself. I’d forgotten how long 2023 really was and just how many good books I was lucky enough to read (or re-read)—some by writers I’ve intended to read forever (A.S. Byatt,…

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DRY LAND is out + interviews & news roundup!

Posted on October 3, 2023September 24, 2024 by bpladek

So DRY LAND came out a week ago! I am feeling overwhelmed, in a good way! I had the launch at my wonderful local indie, Boswell Books, where a bunch of my friends and colleagues came out to ask me smart questions. Pics below this post. If you want to buy the book, you can…

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DRY LAND preorders open!

Posted on June 22, 2023September 24, 2024 by bpladek

You can now preorder DRY LAND from the University of Wisconsin Press and other places! If you like novels about nature, queerness, masculinity, and why heroic self-sacrifice is a bad model for all of them, please preorder! Preorders are really important to how well a book does. More about the novel here, including some nice…

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Dry Land cover!

Posted on February 7, 2023September 24, 2024 by bpladek

Today I get to share the striking cover of Dry Land, my debut historical about a WWI forester who discovers he has the power to grow trees from nothing. It’s out from University of Wisconsin Press this fall (2023). The cover was designed by Jennifer Conn at UW Press; it’s based on a stunning linoleum…

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2022 year-in-reading + 10 Bryher books

Posted on January 1, 2023September 24, 2024 by bpladek

I read less in 2022 than I did in 2021, partly because my brain was exhausted by novel edits, partly because in November I stepped into an admin role at work whose onboarding required more nights/weekends than I anticipated. Still, it was a good reading year: Sofia Samatar’s incredible memoir The White Mosque came out,…

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Virgil Opts Out (or: how Dante made me trans)

Posted on May 5, 2022September 24, 2024 by bpladek

For years I’ve been mildly obsessed with canto 30 of Dante’s Purgatorio—in particular, what happens to Virgil afterwards. In the canto, Virgil has led Dante up mount purgatory to the edenic garden that lies just below paradise. He’s been Dante’s guide for the last sixty-four cantos, down through hell, where the damned are punished, and…

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2021 year in reading + 8 Mary Renault novels

Posted on January 1, 2022September 24, 2024 by bpladek

I’ve given up posting regular reading dumps, but I’m committed to continuing the yearly overview. This year I read less than last by a few books, partially because I lost most of December to illness/vacation, partially because I taught an extra class in fall, partially because this year has been more dramatic—in good and bad…

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2020 year in reading + my idiosyncratic Sarah Waters ranking

Posted on January 1, 2021September 24, 2024 by bpladek

I haven’t posted on this blog in over a year. Initially, in fall 2019, it was because I’d gotten behind on my reading recaps. Then 2020 happened. I didn’t stop reading—though it’s been very fits-and-starts—but all my spare energy has been given to teaching, working on my novel, or caulking the cracks in my personal…

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2019 reading blog compilation

Posted on January 1, 2020September 24, 2024 by bpladek

A compilation of my mini-reading-reviews from winter, spring, and summer 2019. These were originally separate blog posts on my old site but I’ve compiled them here. Spoilers for everything. * Sarah Caudwell, Thus Was Adonis Murdered (novel, 1981): Wry, delightful murder mystery, surprisingly queer for 1981: the narrator is left deliberately ungendered, and a plot…

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Recent Posts

  • 2024 year-in-reading
  • 2023 year-in-reading + 7 Glenway Wescotts
  • DRY LAND is out + interviews & news roundup!
  • DRY LAND preorders open!
  • Dry Land cover!

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