Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:14:13 -0700WeeblyFri, 28 Feb 2025 10:37:39 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2024

1. “Tear” — Erica McKeen  (January)
2. “Twelfth Night” — William Shakespeare  (January)
3. “A Box of Matches” — Nicholson Baker  (January)
4. “Gone So Long” — Andre Dubus III  (January)
5. “The Age of Guilt” — Mark Edmundson  (January)
6. “The Cobra and The Key” — Sam Shelstad  (January)
7. “The First Part of King Henry IV” — William Shakespeare  (January)
8. “Not A Life Coach” — James Smith  (February)
9. “Nightmare on Main Street” — Mark Edmundson  (February)
10. “Drug Story” — u. v. ray  (February)
11. “Chaos” — Edmund White  (February)
12. “City Boy” — Edmund White  (March)
13. “Milk Teeth” — Jessica Andrews  (March)
14. “Push Process” — Jonathan Walker  (March)
15. “The World Beyond Your Head” — Matthew Crawford  (April)
16. “Misery” — Stephen King  (April)
17. “A Man Called Ove” — Fredrik Backman  (April)
18. “Idler # 35” — Tom Hodgkinson, Ed.  (May)
19. “Amusing Ourselves To Death” — Neil Postman  (May)
20. “The Reluctant Beatle: George Harrison” — Philip Norman  (May)
21. “Urban Dharma” — Kusala Bhikshu & Rebecca Wilson  (May)
22. “Zen in the Art of Archery” — Eugen Herrigel  (May)
23. “The Dude & The Zen Master” — Jeff Bridges & Bernie Glassman  (May)
24. “Walden” — Henry David Thoreau  (May)
25. “Concord Rebel” — August Derleth  (May)
26. “Martin Eden” — Jack London  (May)
27. “Voluntary Simplicity” — Duane Elgin  (June)
28. “The Rinzai Zen Way” — Meido Moore  (June)
29. “Lightfoot” — Nicholas Jennings  (July)
30. “Zenith Hotel” — Oscar Coop-Phane  (July)
31. “Small Things Like These” — Claire Keegan  (July)
32. “The Spinning Heart” — Donal Ryan  (July)
33. “Such Kindness” — Andre Dubus III  (July)
34. “Some Rain Must Fall” — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (August)
35. “Free Love” — Tessa Hadley  (August)
36. “Snookered” — Ishy Din  (August)
37. “The Man” — James Graham  (August)
38. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — Edward Albee  (August)
39. “Art” — Yasmina Reza  (August)
40. “The God of Carnage” — Yasmina Reza  (August)
41. “Freak” — Anna Jordan  (August)
42. “Red” — John Logan  (August)
43. “The Man with Night Sweats” — Thom Gunn  (August)
44. “When Blue Light Falls” — Carol Watts  (August)
45. “Through” — David Herd  (August)
46. “The Writer” — Ella Hickson  (August)
47. “Playboy” — Constance Debré  (September)
48. “Locker Room Talk” — Gary McNair  (September)
49. “Attempts on Her Life” — Martin Crimp  (September)
50. “How To Wash A Heart” — Bhanu Kapil  (September)
51. “Why Teach?” — Mark Edmundson  (September)  (again)
52. “Run-Out Groove” — Joseph Coward  (September)
53. “Landscape with Light” — Jon Thompson  (September)
54. “Bedouin of the London Evening” — Rosemary Tonks  (September)
55. “Faulty Mothering” — Elaine Randall  (September)
56. “The Poet” — Louisa Reid  (September)  (again)
57. “Bluets” — Maggie Nelson  (September)
58. “Lurex” — Denise Riley  (September)
59. “Lunch Poems” — Frank O’Hara  (October)
60. “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” — Billy Collins  (October)
61. “Excellent Sheep” — William Deresiewicz  (October)
62. “Someday There Will Be Machine Shops Full of Roses” — Fred Voss  (October)
63. “Four Quartets” — T. S. Eliot  (October)
64. “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” — John Ashbery  (October)
65. “Rabbit” — Sophie Robinson  (October)
66. “Frank O’Hara: Selected Poems” — Frank O’Hara w. Ed. Mark Ford  (October)
67. “Word for the Wind” — Theodore Roethke  (October)
68. “The Waste Land & Other Poems” — T. S. Eliot  (October)
69. “What Is This Thing Called Love” — Kim Addonizio  (October)
70. “Dante In China” — John Barr  (October)
71. “The Strange Hours Travelers Keep” — August Kleinzahler  (October)
72. “Getting Into Poetry” — Paul Hyland  (November)
73. “Goodstone” — Fred Voss  (November)
74. “Mindfield” — Gregory Corso  (November)
75. “Musical Tables” — Billy Collins  (November)
76. “The Mersey Sound” — Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten (November)
77. “Storm Damage” — Brian Patten  (November)
78. “Zen and The Beat Way” — Alan Watts  (December)
79. “Consent” — Jill Cement  (December)
80. “The Uses of Photography” — Annie Ernaux & Marc Marie  (December)

​Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Sun, 07 Jan 2024 18:36:49 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2023

1. “Vladimir” — Julia May Jonas  (January)
2. “Heatwave” — Victor Jestin  (January)
3. “Yardie” — Victor Headley  (January)
4. “White Butterfly” — Walter Mosley  (January)
5. “Food, Sex & God” — Michèle Roberts  (January)
6. “How New York Breaks Your Heart” — Bill Hayes  (January)
7. “Kitchen” — Banana Yoshimoto  (January)
8. “The Glue Ponys” — Chris Wilson  (February)
9. “Three-Fifths” — John Vercher  (February)
10. “Tolstoy’s Short Fiction” — Leo Tolstoy  (February)
11. “Hell’s Angels” — Hunter S. Thompson  (February)
12. “The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break” — Steven Sherrill  (March)
13. “Lives Like Mine” — Eva Verde  (March)
14. “The Never-Ending Present” — Michael Barclay  (March)
15. “Still Alice” — Lisa Genova  (March)
16. “The Men’s Club” — Leonard Michaels  (March)
17. “Tuesday Nights and Wednesday Mornings” — Gwendoline Riley  (March)
18. “Everyone Is Watching” — Megan Bradbury  (April)
19. “Lucy By The Sea” — Elizabeth Strout  (April)
20. “Stolen Focus” — Johann Hari  (April)
21. “Self and Soul” — Mark Edmundson  (April)
22. “Songs of Innocence and Experience” — William Blake  (April)
23. “The Passenger” — Maryam Sachs  (April)
24. “Instructions For The Drowning” — Steven Heighton  (May)
25. “Good Girl” — Anna Fitzpatrick  (May)
26. “This Is Pleasure” — Mary Gaitskill (May)
27. “Saltwater” — Jessica Andrews  (May)
28. “The Home Child” — Liz Berry  (May)
29. “This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” — Tadeusz Borowski  (May)
30. “Elizabeth Finch” — Julian Barnes  (May)
31. “Manifesto”  Bernardine Evarisro  (May)
32. “The Professor of Desire” — Philip Roth  (June)
33. “How To Be A Straight A Student” — Cal Newport  (June)
34. “The Night Always Comes” — Willy Vlautin  (June)
35. “Into The Wild” — Jon Krakauer  (June)
36. “Mona” — Pola Oloixarao  (June)
37. “Roman Tales” — Alberto Moravia  (June)
38. “The Voyeur” — Alberto Moravia  (June)
39. “The Poet” — Louisa Reid  (June)
40. “Interpreter of Maladies” — Jhumpa Lahiri  (June)
41. “Wait Until Spring, Bandini” — John Fante  (July)
42. “Legends of the Fall” — Jim Harrison  (July)
43. “Offshore” — Penelope Fitzgerald  (July)
44. “Without Warning & Only Sometimes” — Kit De Waal  (July)
45. “The Restraint of Beasts” — Magnus Mills  (July)
46. “Home To Harlem” — Claude McKay  (July)
47. “Monkeys With Typewriters” — Scarlett Thomas  (July)
48. “The Death of Sigmund Freud” — Mark Edmundson  (July)
49. “The War of Art” — Steven Pressfield  (July)  (again)
50. “The Stranger In The Woods” — Michael Finkel  (July)
51. “Why Teach?” — Mark Edmundson  (July)
52. “Flights” — Olga Tokarczuk  (July)
53. “Digital Minimalism” — Cal Newport  (August)
54. “The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break” — Steven Sherrill  (August)  (again)
55. “In Defense of a Liberal Education” — Fareed Zakaria  (August)
56. “Why Football Matters” — Mark Edmundson  (August)
57. “Allegory” — John MacQueen  (August)
58. “Civilisation And Its Discontents” — Sigmund Freud  (August)
59. “Broke” — Tom Clark (Ed.)  (August)
60. “The Restraint of Beasts” — Magnus Mills  (August)  (again)
61. “Pornocracy” — Catherine Breillat  (August)
62. “Things Seen” — Annie Ernaux  (August)
63. “Aspiration” — Agnes Callard  (August)
64. “The Maintenance of Headway” — Magnus Mills  (August)
65. “The Death of Francis Bacon” — Max Porter  (September)
66. “History of Violence” — Edouard Louis  (September)
67. “The Dig” — Cynan Jones  (September)
68. “20 Fragments of A Ravenous Youth” — Xiaolu Guo  (September)
69. “The Joke” — Milan Kundera  (September)
70. “Fear and Trembling” — Amélie Nothomb  (September)
71. “Pastoralia” — George Saunders  (October)
72. “The Sense of An Ending” — Julian Barnes  (October)  (again)
73. “After The Lights Go Out” — John Vercher  (October)
74. “Sympathy” — Olivia Sudjic  (October)  (again)
75. “The Stalker” — Sarah Alderson  (October)
76. “Trouble Is What I Do” — Walter Mosley  (October)
77. “And Then There Were None” — Agatha Christie  (October)
78. “The Rock Blaster” — Henning Mankell  (October)
79. “Pet Sematary” — Stephen King  (November)
80. “On Writing” — George V. Higgins  (November)
81. “The God Of Small Things” — Arundhati Roy  (November)
82. “Urban Tumbleweed” — Harryette Mullen  (November)
83. “Jack Carter’s Law” — Ted Lewis  (November)
84. “The Talented Mr Ripley” — Patricia Highsmith  (November)
85. “The Chain” — Adrian McKinty  (November)
86. “If I Let You Go” — Charlotte Levin  (December)
87. “Why Football Matters” — Mark Edmundson  (December)  (again)
88. “McGlue” — Ottessa Moshfegh  (December)
89. “Nonfiction” — Julie Myerson  (December)
90. “Crossroads” — Jonathan Franzen  (December)
91. “Story of The Eye” — Georges Bataille  (December)  (again)
92. “The Pleasure of the Text” — Roland Barthes  (December)
93. “Other Men’s Daughters” — Richard Stern  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Wed, 31 May 2023 10:00:38 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2022

1. “Collected Poems: 1987 - 2003” — Paul Birtill  (January)
2. “Out of the Woods” — Luke Turner  (January)
3. “Assembly” — Natasha Brown  (January)
4. “A Blood Condition” — Kayo Chingoyi  (January)
5. “Monastery” — Eduardo Halfon  (January)
6. “Petite Fleur” — Iosi Havilio  (January)
7. “77 Love Sonnets” — Garrison Keillor  (January)
8. “What Belongs To You” — Garth Greenwell  (January)
9. “Inside The Wave” — Helen Dunmore  (January)
10. “Box Hill” — Adam Mars-Jones  (January)
11. “Nonsense” — Christopher Reid  (January)
12. “Small Town Girl” — Donna McLean  (February)
13. “Cherry” — Nico Walker  (February)
14. “art sex music” — Cosey Fanni Tutti  (February)
15. “The Motel Life” — Willy Vlautin  (March)
16. “The Painted Word” — Tom Wolfe  (March)
17. “Weird Fucks” — Lynne Tillman  (March)
18. “The Fighter” — Craig Davidson  (March)
19. “Repair” — C. K. Williams  (March)
20. “Bourdain in Stories” — Laurie Woolever  (March)
21. “The Free” — Willy Vlautin  (March)
22. “The Question” — Austin Clarke  (March)
23. “Keeping The House” — Tice Cin  (March)
24. “Cockfighter” — Charles Willeford  (April)
25. “56 Days” — Catherine Howard Ryan  (April)
26. “The Undercurrents: A Story of Berlin” — Kirsty Bell  (May)
27. “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” — Robert Pirsig  (May)
28. “The Art of Rivalry” — Sebastian Smee  (May)
29. “Baise-Moi” — Virginie Despentes  (May)
30. “The Demon” — Hubert Selby Jr.  (May)
31. “Yoga” — Emmanuel Carrère  (June)
32. “I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen” — Sylvie Simmons  (June)
33. “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” — Richard Flanagan  (July)
34. “The Young Accomplice” — Benjamin Wood  (July)
35. “Three Zen Masters: Ikkyū; Hakuin; Ryōkan” — John Stevens  (July)
36. “The Mermaid of Black Conch” — Monique Roffey  (July)
37. “Actress” — Anne Enright  (August)
38. “Consolations of the Forest” — Sylvain Tesson  (August)
39. “Olive, Again” — Elizabeth Strout  (August)
40. “My Phantoms” — Gwendoline Riley  (August)
41. “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” — Alicia Elliott  (August)
42. “Do The Work” — Steven Pressfield  (August)
43. “Trilobites & Other Stories” — Breece D’J Pancake  (September)
44. “Town Smokes” — Pinckney Benedict  (September)
45. “The Abide Guide” — Oliver Benjamin & Dwayne Eutsey  (September)
46. “The Pear Field” — Nana Ekvtimishvili  (September)
47. “A Book of Silence” — Sara Maitland  (September)
48. “Tao: A New Way of Thinking” — Chung-yuan Chang  (September)
49. “How To Fail” — Elizabeth Day  (September)
50. “Open City” — Teju Cole  (September)
51. “Lapvona” — Ottessa Moshfegh  (September)
52. “Death and The Seaside” — Alison Moore  (October)
53. “IT” — Stephen King  (October)
54. “Morning: How To Make Time” — Allan Jenkins  (October)  (Again)
55. “The Rest of the Way” — J. D. McClatchy  (November)
56. “Berlin” — Bea Setton  (November)
57. “Dubliners” — James Joyce  (November)  (Again)
58. “New Collected Poems” — Tomas Tranströmer  (November)
59. “By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept” — Elizabeth Smart  (November)
60. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck” — Mark Mason  (November)
61. “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” — Muriel Spark  (November)
62. “Teacher: The One Who Made A Difference” — Mark Edmundson  (November)
63. “Cleaning Up at the Hamtramck Burger Chef: Selected Poems 1999-2006” — Don Winter  (November)
64. “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” — Cal Newport  (November)
65. “Why Write?” — Mark Edmundson  (November)
66. “Why Read?” — Mark Edmundson  (November)
67. “Symposium” — Plato  (December)
68. “Getting Lost” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
69. “Billy Rags” — Ted Lewis  (December)
70. “The Palm-Wine Drinkard” — Amos Tutuola  (December)
71. “Oh William!” — Elizabeth Strout  (December)
72. “Hawk Mountain” — Conner Habib  (December)
73. “Cutting Timber: An Irritation” — Thomas Bernhard  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.]]>Sat, 08 Jan 2022 08:11:15 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2021-plus-more

1. “The Lying Life of Adults” — Elena Ferrante  (January)
2. “Moscow Circles” — Benedict Erofeev  (January)
3. “The End of Eddy” — Édourad Louis  (January)
4. “I Love Dick” — Chris Kraus  (January)
5. “Persepolis” — Marjane Satrapi  (January)
6. “Motherhood” — Shelia Heti  (January)
7. “An Event in Autumn” — Henning Mankell  (February)
8. “Crush” — Frédéric Dard  (February)
9. “Crime and Punishment” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky  (February)
10. “The Executioner Weeps” — Frédéric Dard  (February)
11. “Zen and The Art of Murder” — Oliver Bottini  (February)
12. “In The Cut”  — Susanna Moore  (February)
13. “One Way Out” — A. A. Dhand  (February)
14. “A Drinking Life — Pete Hamill  (March)
15. “Don’t You Leave Me Here” — Wilko Johnson  (March)
16. “Heartburn” — Nora Ephron  (March)
17. “Requiem For A Dream” — Hubert Selby Jr.  (March)
18. “A Boy’s Own Story” — Edmund White  (April)
19. “The Brotherhood of The Grape” — John Fante  (April)
20. “MainStream” — Various  (April)
21. “Who Killed My Father?” — Édourad Louis  (April)
22. “In The Dream House” — Carmen Maria Machado  (April)
23. “Waiting Period” — Hubert Selby Jr.  (April)
24. “Atomic Habits” — James Clear  (April)
25. “Jews Don’t Count” — David Baddiel  (April)
26. “Shuggie Bain” — Douglas Stuart  (April)
27. “Odes” — Sharon Olds  (May)
28. “The Giro Playboy” — Michael Smith  (May)
29. “The Descent of Man” — Grayson Perry  (May)
30. “An Apartment on Uranus” — Paul B. Preciado  (May)
31. “The Narrow Road to The Deep North” — Basho  (May)
32. “The Way Home” — Mark Boyle  (May)
33. “Move!” — Caroline Williams  (May)
34. “Politically Homeless” — Matt Forde  (June)
35. “The Tunnel” — Ernesto Sabato  (June)
36. “Exposure” — Aga Lesiewicz  (June)
37. “Discipline Equals Freedom” — Jocko Willink  (June)
38. “Existentialism and Excess: The Life…” — Gary Cox  (June)
39. “You Were Never Really Here” — Jonathan Ames  (June)
40. “The Abbey” — Chris Culver  (July)
41. “Morning: How To Make Time” — Allan Jenkins  (July)
42. “The Hustler” — Walter Tevis  (July)
43. “The Shadow Collector” — Kate Ellis  (July)
44. “Crossroad Blues” — Ace Atkins  (July)
45. “Luster” — Raven Leilani  (July)
46. “A Spring Betrayal” — Tom Callaghan  (July)
47. “Divorcing” — Susan Taubes  (July)
48. “The Less Dead” — Denise Mina  (July)
49. “Daisy Jones & The Six” — Taylor Jenkins Reid  (August)
50. “The Colour of Money” — Walter Tevis  (August)
51. “The Answer Is…” — Alex Trebek  (August)
52. “Room at the Top” — John Braine  (August)
53. “Ankomst” — Gøhril Gabrielsen  (August)
54. “Hunger” — Knut Hamsun  (August)
55. “The Lone Woman” — Bernardo Atxaga  (August)
56. “Everybody” — Olivia Laing  (August)
57. “Real Estate” — Deborah Levy  (September)
58. “The King of Fools” — Frédéric Dard  (September)
59. “Dancing in the Dark” — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (September)
60. “Kitchen Confidential” — Anthony Bourdain  (September)
61. “Home in the Vinyl Cafe” — Stuart McLean  (October)
62. “The Warriors” — Sol Yurick  (October)
63. “The Listeners” — Jordan Tannahill  (October)
64. “Invisible Cities” — Italo Calvino  (October)
65. “The Good Father” — Wayne Grady  (October)
66. “The Vinyl Cafe Celebrates” — Stuart McLean  (November)
67. “Sonny Liston Was A Friend of Mine” — Thom Jones  (November)
68. “Why Marianne Faithfull Matters?” — Tanya Pearson  (November)
69. “Olive Kitteridge” — Elizabeth Strout  (November)
70. “Exteriors” — Annie Ernaux  (November)
71. “Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It” — Oliver Burkeman  (November)
72. “Life at the Top” — John Braine  (November)
73. “American Salvage” — Bonnie Jo Campbell  (November)
74. “A Walk in the Woods” — Bill Bryson  (November)
75. “Indelicacy” — Amina Cain  (November)
76. “Second Place” — Rachel Cusk  (November)
77. “Micromastery” — Robert Twigger  (November)
78. “Rewilding” — Micah Mortali  (December)
79. “The War of Art” — Steven Pressfield  (December)
80. “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times” — Katherine May  (December)
81. “Essential: Essays by The Minimalists” — Ryan Nicodemus & Joshua Fields Millburn  (December)
82. “Dhammapada” — Sangharakshita (Trans.)  (December)
83. “Everything That Remains” — Ryan Nicodemus & Joshua Fields Millburn  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Fri, 01 Jan 2021 09:16:47 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2020-plus-more

1. “Adèle” — Leïla Silmani  (January)
2. “Femme Fatale” — Polly Wiseman  (January)
3. “A Man’s Place” — Annie Ernaux  (January)
4. “The Man Who Saw Everything” — Deborah Levy  (January)
5. “The Italian Teacher” — Tom Rachman  (January)
6. “In the Café of Lost Youth” — Patrick Modiano  (January)
7. “Walthamstow” — Michael Shann  (January)
8. “Vivian” — Christina Hesselholdt (January)
9. “Soho” — Richard Scott  (January)
10. “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” — Ocean Vuong  (January)
11. “The Pharmacist” — Justin David  (January)
12. “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes Music, Music, Music Boys, Boys, Boys” — Viv Albertine  (Feb)
13. “Charlotte” — David Foenkinos  (February)
14. “How to Relax” — Thich That Hanh  (February)
15. “The Nickel Boys” — Colson Whitehead  (February)
16. “Strange Hotel” — Eimear McBride  (February)
17. “Great Fires: Poems 1982 - 1992” — Jack Gilbert  (February)
18. “Gunslinger” — Edward Dorn  (March)
19. “The Cost of Living” — Deborah Levy  (March)
20. “Melisande! What Are Dreams?” — Hillel Halkin  (March)
21. “Do/Pause” — Robert Poynton  (March)
22. “The Counterlife” — Philip Roth  (March)
23. “Everything I Know About Love” — Dolly Alderton  (April)
24. “Little Miss Awesome” — Ally North  (April)
25. “Little Miss Awesome” — Steve Hussy  (April)
26. “The Facts” — Philip Roth  (April)
27. “Hating Olivia” — Mark SaFranko  (April)
28. “Steps” — Steve Hussy  (April)
29. “Fugitive Pieces” — Anne Michaels  (April)
30. “Insel” — Mina Loy  (April)
31. “The Long Drop” — Denise Mina  (April)
32. “Lincoln in the Bardo” — George Saunders  (April)
33. “Mindfulness in Plain English” — Bhante Henepola Gunaratana  (April)
34. “The Undertaking” — Audrey Magee  (April)
35. “The Land of Decoration” — Grace McCleen  (May)
36. “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” — Greg McKeown  (May)
37. “The Professor of Poetry” — Grace McCleen  (May)
38. “Carnegie Hall With Tin Walls” — Fred Voss  (May)
39. “Milk and Honey” — Rupi Kaur  (June)
40. “The English Major” — Jim Harrison  (June)
41. “Devil in a Blue Dress” — Walter Mosley  (June)
42. “Welfare” — Steve Anwyll  (June)
43. “Hide and Seek” — Ian Rankin  (June)
44. “Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency” — Olivia Laing  (June)
45. “Brothers in Blood” — Amer Anwar  (June)
46. “Elements of Fiction” — Walter Mosley  (July)
47. “Fante Bukowski” — Noah Van Sciver  (July)
48. “A Fan’s Notes” — Fredrick Exley  (July)
49. “My Dark Vanessa” — Kate Elizabeth Russell  (July)
50. “Good Samaritans” — Will Carver  (July)
51. “The Polish Boxer” — Eduardo Halfon  (July)
52. “Those People” — Louise Candlish  (July)
53. “Black Sun” — Owen Matthews  (July)
54. “Girl” — Edna O’Brien  (July)
55. “Three Women” — Lisa Taddeo  (August)
56. “The Red Right Hand” — Joel Townsley Rogers  (August)
57. “August Is The Wicked Month” — Edna O’Brien  (August)
58. “The Long Goodbye” — Raymond Chandler  (August)
59. “In Praise of Shadows” — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki  (August)
60. “The Sweet Indifference of the World” — Peter Stamm  (August)
61. “Good Day?” — Vesna Main  (August)
62. “The Bluest Eye” — Toni Morrison  (August)
63. “Bank Robber Stories” — Jeffrey P. Frye  (August)
64. “Bird in a Cage” — Frédéric Dard  (August)
65. “Get Carter” — Ted Lewis  (August)
66. “Supporting Cast” — Kit De Waal  (September)
67. “Red Death” — Walter Mosley  (September)
68. “King Kong Theory” — Virginie Despentes  (September)
69. “A Long Way Off” — Pascal Garnier  (September)
70. “Plender” — Ted Lewis  (September)
71. “GBH” — Ted Lewis  (September)
72. “In the Absence of Men” — Philippe Besson  (September)
73. “The Appointment” — Katharina Volckmer  (September)
74. “Swan Song” — Nathan Evans  (October)
75. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” — Ken Kesey  (October)
76. “The Gravediggers’ Bread” — Frédéric Dard  (October)
77. “The Wicked Go To Hell” — Frédéric Dard  (October)
78. “‘Nikolai Nikolaevich’ and ‘Camouflage’” — Yuz Aleshkovsky  (October)
79. “All About Sarah” — Pauline Delabroy-Allard  (October)
80. “Skint Estate” — Cash Carraway  (October)
81. “Winter” — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (October)
82. “Greenlights” — Matthew McConaughey  (November)
83. “Narcoleptic” — Steve Hussy  (November)
84. “97,196 Words: Essays” — Emmanuel Carrère  (November)
85. “Jesus’ Son” — Denis Johnson  (November)
86. “The All of It” — Jeannette Haien  (November)
87. “The Fall” — Albert Camus  (November)
88. “Beside The Sea” — Véronique Olmi  (November)
89. “The Patty Diphusa Stories and Other Writings” — Pedro Almodóvar  (November)
90. “Diving Into The Wreck” — Adrienne Rich  (November)
91. “Autumn” — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (December)
92. “Possession” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
93. “Berlin Tango” — Kevin McAleer  (December)
94. “The Song of Lunch” — Christopher Reid  (December) (again)
95. “A Frozen Woman” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
96. “Embers” — Sándor Márai  (December)
97. “Happening” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
98. “I Remain in Darkness” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
99. “Simple Passion” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
100. “A Woman’s Story” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
101. “The Queen’s Gambit” — Walter Tevis  (December)
102. “How We Live Now” — Bill Hayes  (December)​

Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Tue, 31 Dec 2019 09:06:06 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2019-plus-more

1. “How Saints Die” — Carmen Marcus  (January)
2. “Pulse” — Julian Barnes  (January)
3. “The Lonely Witness” — William Boyle  (January)
4. “Far From True” — Linwood Barclay  (January)
5. “Rather Be The Devil” — Ian Rankin  (February)
6. “The Porcupine” — Julian Barnes  (February)
7. “Monsieur” — Emma Becker (February)
8. “Maggie & Me” — Damian Barr (February)
9. “The Murder of Halland” — Pia Juul  (March)
10. “The Easter Parade” — Richard Yates  (March) (again)
11. “Knots and Crosses” — Ian Rankin  (April)
12. “Black-Eyed Susans” — Julia Haeberlin  (April)
13. “Madame Bovary” — Gustave Flaubert  (April)
14. “Mrs Sartoris” — Elke Schmitter  (April)
15. “Common People” — Various  (May)
16. “Talking It Over” — Julian Barnes  (May)
17. “Paper Ghosts” — Julia Haeberlin  (May)
18. “Silent Scream” — Angela Marsons  (May)
19. “Stop Doing That Shit” — Gary John Bishop  (May)
20. “Sister, Sister” — Sue Fortin  (May)
21. “To The Back of Beyond” — Peter Stamm  (May)
22. “Is Monogamy Dead?” — Rosie Wilby  (May)
23. “Insomniac City” — Bill Hayes  (May)
24. “Goodbye, Things” — Fumio Sasaki  (June)
25. “Notes to Self” — Emilie Pine  (June)
26. “Only The Ocean” — Natasha Carthew  (June)
27. “Acts of Infidelity” — Lena Anderson  (June)
28. “The Good Son” — Paul McVeigh  (July)
29. “Constellations” — Sinéad Gleeson  (July)
30. “The Opposite of Loneliness” — Marina Keegan  (July)
31. “Troubling Love” — Elena Ferrante  (July)
32. “Notes on a Nervous Planet” — Matt Haig  (July)
33. “Train Dreams” — Denis Johnson  (July)
34. “All The Blood Is Red” — Leone Ross  (July)
35. “The Artistic Life” — Mark SaFranko  (August)
36. “The Park Bench” — Chabouté  (August)
37. “The Assault” — Harry Mulisch  (August)
38. “Peach” — Emma Glass  (August)
39. “Come Let Us Sing Anyway” — Leone Ross  (August)
40. “He’s Done Ever So Well for Himself” — Justin David  (August)
41. “Drug Story” — u. v. ray  (August)
42. “Daddy’s Girl” — Debbie Drechsler  (September)
43. “The Summer of Love” — Debbie Drechsler  (September)
44. “Threads” — Nathan Evans & Justin David  (September)
45. “Lowborn” — Kerry Hudson  (September)
46. “Made in Scotland” — Billy Connolly  (September)
47. “Cnut” — Nathan Evans  (September)
48. “Paul Moves Out” — Michel Rabagliati  (September)
49. “Paul Goes Fishing” — Michel Rabagliati  (September)
50. “Cleveland” — Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant  (September)
51. “Alone” — Chabouté  (September)
52. “Snow” — Maxence Fermine  (September)
53. “Normal People” — Sally Rooney  (September)
54. “AutoFellatio: A Memoir” — James Maker  (September)
55. “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” — Ottessa Moshfegh  (September)
56. “In The City of Love’s Sleep” — Lavinia Greenlaw  (October)
57. “Scrapbook” — Adrian Tomine  (October)
58. “32 Stories” — Adrian Tomine  (October)
59. “The Pale Ones” — Bartholomew Bennett  (November)
60. “A Choice of Whitman’s Verse” — Walt Whitman  (November)
61. “Of Mice and Men” — John Steinbeck  (November)
62. “Hard Labor” — Don Winter & Fred Voss  (November)
63. “Love, etc” — Julian Barnes  (November)
64. “Before She Met Me” — Julian Barnes  (November)
65. “Northern Boy” — Iqbal Hussein  (November)
66. “Stone in a Landslide” — Maria Barbal  (November)
67. “The Fast 800” — Dr Michael Mosley  (November)
68. “New York City in 1979” — Kathy Acker  (November)
69. “The Reader” — Raymond Jean  (November)
70. “How to be Alone” — Lane Moore  (December)
71. “Stillness is the Key” — Ryan Holiday  (December)
72. “Walk Through Walls” — Marina Abramović  (December)
73. “The Flame” — Leonard Cohen  (December)
74. “The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving A Fuck” — Sarah Knight  (December)
75. “The Years” — Annie Ernaux  (December)
76. “Lullaby” — Leïla Slimani  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2019 15:06:13 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2018-plus-more

1. Metroland — Julian Barnes  (January)
2. All Is Silence — Manuel Rivas  (January)
3. The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath  (January)
4. Limonov — Emmanuel Carrere  (January)
5. The Looking-Glass Sisters — Gøhril Gabrielsen  (January)
6. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning — Alan Sillitoe  (February)
7. Silence — Shusaku Endo  (February)
8. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner — Alan Sillitoe  (February)
9. Winesburg, Ohio — Sherwood Anderson  (February)
10. Fragments from My Diary — Maxim Gorky  (March)
11. The Days of Abandonment — Elena Ferrante  (March)
12. The End of the Affair — Graham Greene  (March)
13. A Scattering — Christopher Reid  (March)
14. Lost and Found — Jules Montague  (April)
15. Outline — Rachel Cusk  (April)
16. We Should All Be Feminists — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  (April)
17. The Plains — Gerard Murnane  (April)
18. Sympathy — Olivia Sudjic  (April)
19. Birthday Letters — Ted Hughes  (May)
20. Packing My Library — Alberto Manguel  (May)
21. The Nothing — Hanif Kureishi  (May)
22. My Name is Leon — Kit De Waal  (May)
23. Everyman — Philip Roth  (May) (again)
24. 12 Rules for Life — Jordan Peterson  (June)
25. Left in Dark Times — Bernard-Henri Levy  (June)
26. Transit — Rachel Cusk  (June)
27. The Plot Against America — Philip Roth  (July)
28. A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better — Benjamin Wood  (July)
29. Conversations With Friends — Sally Rooney  (July)
30. Kudos — Rachel Cusk  (July)
31. Story of the Eye — Georges Bataille  (July)
32. Crudo — Olivia Laing  (August)
33. The Double — Fyodor Dostoyevsky  (August)
34. Pitch Dark — Renata Adler  (August)
35. The Trick to Time — Kit De Waal  (September)
36. Sentenced to Life — Clive James  (September)
37. The Lost — Claire McGowan  (October)
38. Temptation — Vesna Main  (October)
39. Special Delivery — Iselin C. Hermann  (October)
40. The Only Story — Julian Barnes  (October)
41. Last Exit to Brooklyn — Hubert Selby Jr.  (October)
42. Six Foot Six — Kit De Waal  (October)
43. The Long Take — Robin Robertson  (October)
44. Everything Under — Daisy Johnson  (October)
45. The Last Wolf — Laszlo Krasznahorkai  (November)
46. Judas — Amos Oz  (November)
47. Elevation — Stephen King  (November)
48. Big Magic — Elizabeth Gilbert  (November)
49. Men Explain Things — Rebecca Solnit  (November)
50. The Outrun — Amy Liptrot  (December)
51. Boyhood Island — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (December)
52. Blue Light Yokohama 3 — Nicolas Obregon  (December)
53. The Adversary — Emmanuel Carrere  (December)
54. White Teeth — Zadie Smith  (December)
55. The Song of Lunch — Christopher Reid  (December)
56. Asymmetry — Lisa Halliday  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.
]]>Mon, 01 Jan 2018 10:18:33 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2017

1. Smashed in the USSR: Fear and Loathing on the Steppes — Caroline Walton & Ivan Petrov  (January)
2. The Lesser Bohemians — Eimear McBride  (January)
3. The Sex Lives of English Women — Wendy Jones  (January)
4. The Lonely City — Olivia Laing  (January)
5. Nutshell — Ian McEwan  (January)
6. Grief Is The Thing With Feathers — Max Porter  (January)
7. The Essex Serpent — Sarah Perry  (February)
8. The London Train — Tessa Hadley  (February)
9. On Love — Charles Bukowski  (February)
10. First Love — Gwendoline Riley  (March)
11. The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays — Simon Leys  (March)
12. Remedy Is None — William McIlvanney  (April)
13. Future Sex — Emily Witt  (April)
14. Sins as Scarlet — Nicolas Obregon  (June)
15. Anything is Possible — Elizabeth Strout  (June)
16. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay — Elena Ferrante  (June)
17. The Story of The Lost Child — Elena Ferrante  (July)
18. Backbone Flute — Vladimir Mayakovsky  (July)
19. A Man in Love — Karl Ove Knausgaard  (July)
20. The Dying Animal — Philip Roth  (July) (again)
21. In Gratitude — Jenny Diski  (July)
22. The Tryst — Monique Roffey  (July)
23. The Power of Meaning — Emily Esfahani Smith (July)
24. Trysting — Emmanuelle Pagano  (August)
25. The Key — Junichiro Tanizaki  (August)
26. My Name Is Lucy Barton — Elizabeth Strout  (August)
27. Sabbath’s Theatre — Philip Roth  (September)
28. On the Suffering of the World — Arthur Schopenhauer  (September)
29. The Children Act — Ian McEwan  (September)
30. The Child in Time — Ian McEwan  (September)
31. Sylvia — Leonard Michaels  (October)
32. Portrait of a Mother as a Young Woman — Friedrich Christian Delius  (October)
33. Four Major Plays: A Doll’s House; Ghosts; Hedda Gabler; The Master Builder — Henrik Ibsen  (October)
34. Venus in Furs — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch  (October)
35. Bonjour Tristesse — Françoise Sagan  (October)
36. Christodora — Tim Murphy  (October)
37. The Shooting Party — Anton Chekhov  (October)
38. Levels of Life — Julian Barnes  (November)
39. Dunbar — Edward St. Aubyn  (November)
40. The Cut — Anthony Cartwright  (November)
41. Henry and June — Anais Nin  (November)
42. The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle  (December)
43. The Kingdom — Emmanuel Carrere  (December)
44. Tony & Susan — Austin Wright  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.]]>Mon, 09 Jan 2017 20:05:43 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2016

1. My Universities — Maxim Gorky  (January)
2. The Zone — Sergei Dovlatov  (January)
3. Home of the Gentry — Ivan Turgenev  (January)
4. So Long, See You Tomorrow — William Maxwell  (January)
5. Clever Girl — Tessa Hadley  (January)
6. Separate Flights — Andre Dubus  (February)
7. Adultery and Other Choices — Andre Dubus  (February)
8. Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreev — Maxim Gorky  (February)
9. Redeployment — Phil Klay  (March)
10. Laidlaw — William McIlvanney  (March)
11. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams — Stephen King  (March)
12. They Came Like Swallows — William Maxwell  (March)
13. Fear of Dying — Erica Jong  (April)
14. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair — Pablo Neruda  (April)
15. Midwinterblood — Marcus Sedgwick  (May)
16. My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante  (May)
17. Patrimony — Philip Roth  (May)
18. Wonder Boys — Michael Chabon  (May)
19. Blue Light Yokohama — Nicolas Obregon  (June)
20. Still Writing:The Perils and Pleasures of the Creative Life — Dani Shapiro  (June)
21. The Papers of Tony Veitch — William McIlvanney  (July)
22. Gilead — Marylyne Robinson (July)
23. Strange Loyalties — William McIlvanney  (July)
24. Martin John — Anakana Schofield  (July)
25. At Hawthorn Time — Melissa Harrison  (August)
26. The Little Red Chairs — Edna O’Brien  (August)
27. Marie — Madeleine Bourdouxhe  (August)
28. Seven Brief Lessons On Physics — Carlo Rovelli  (August)
29. Tampa — Alissa Nutting  (August)
30. A Summer Affair — Ivan Klima  (September)
31. The Noise of Time — Julian Barnes  (September)
32. Gorsky — Vesna Goldsworthy  (September)
33. Country Girl — Edna O’Brien  (September)
34. Confessions of a Mask — Yukio Mishima  (October)
35. I Remember — Joe Brainard  (November) (again)
36. His Bloody Project — Graeme Macrae Burnet  (November)
37. The Vegetarian — Han Kang  (November)
38. The Engagement — Chloe Hooper  (December)
39. The Story of a New Name — Elena Ferrante  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.]]>Tue, 01 Mar 2016 15:29:06 GMThttps://www.writerchrissimpson.com/books-read/books-read-2015

1. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott  (January)
2. The Lover — Marguerite Duras   (January)
3. To Rise Again At A Decent Hour — Joshua Ferris   (January)
4. Genie and Paul — Natasha Soobramanien  (January)
5. Ghosting — Jonathan Kemp   (February)
6. Broken Vessels — Andre Dubus   (February)
7. Perfect Lives — Polly Samson   (February)
8. The Russian Master & Other Stories — Anton Chekhov   (February)
9. Father Sergius — Leo Tolstoy   (February)
10. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich — Alexander Solzhenitsyn  (March)
11. The Suitcase — Sergei Dovlatov   (March)
12. Pushkin Hills — Sergei Dovlatov   (March)
13. My Childhood — Maxim Gorky   (March)
14. Eugene Onegin — Aleksandr Pushkin   (March)
15. The Compromise — Sergei Dovlatov   (April)
16. Notes From Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky   (May)
17. Petersburg Tales — Nikolai Gogol   (May)
18. The Gambler — Fyodor Dostoevsky   (May)
19. At Night — Alex Quick   (May)
20. First Love and Other Stories — Ivan Turgenev (June)
21. Don’t Try This At Home — Angela Readman  (June)
22. Pimp — Iceberg Slim  (June)
23. All That Is — James Salter (July)
24. Old School — Tobias Wolff  (July)
25. The Ecliptic — Benjamin Wood  (July)
26. Too Loud a Solitude — Bohumil Hrabal  (July)
27. Life Drawing — Robin Black  (August)
28. All Dogs Are Blue — Rodrigo de la Souza  (August)
29. A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing — Eimear McBride  (August)
30. Layla — Nina De La Mer  (August)
31. The Hair of Harold Roux — Thomas Williams  (September)
32. The Gentleman from San Fran. & Other Edits — Ivan Bunin  (September)
33. My Apprenticeship — Maxim Gorky  (September)
34. Dolores Claiborne — Stephen King  (October)
35. The Palace Thief — Ethan Canin  (October)
36. The Best British Short Stories — Nicholas Royle ed.  (October)
37. Revival — Stephen King  (November)
38. The Prank — Anton Chekhov  (November)
39. Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy  (December)
40. Contempt — Alberto Moravia  (December)

Books in bold were particularly good.]]>