Things I am reading, things I am failing to read, and one thing I have re-read three times.
On the bedside table — The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov. I am thirty pages in and I keep losing my place. Not because it is hard but because every paragraph is so good that I want to stop and think about it, and then I forget what page I was on.
In the bag I take to set — A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Solnit. Re-read. I have read it three times now. I think I will read it three more.
On my desk, unopened — In Search of Lost Time, Vol. III. I am being honest with myself. I am not going to read this. I bought it in a hopeful mood in November and it has sat on my desk since.
Failing slowly — 2666, Bolaño. I make it about a hundred pages every winter and then I quit. This is the fourth winter.
Just finished — The Years, Annie Ernaux. I will not say more about it because I do not want to summarize it. I will only say that it made me want to write the kind of letter that this newsletter sometimes turns into.
If you have a winter book — something slow, something to hold for the next two months — please send it. I am collecting.
— A.K., December 2025