May 2022

Quick rundown of the films I caught this month: Started with Pas son genre by Lucas Belvaux. Clément—played brilliantly by Loïc Corbery, whom I've applauded plenty at the Comédie Française—is a young Parisian philosophy professor. Very, very intellectual. He considers his new position a punishment...

"She didn't respect walls. She made them retractable, half-liquid, almost nonexistent, forcing me to see things in her that are better left unseen... things that threaten necessary intimacy." Since her husband died, the narrator has retreated. Withdrawn. She manages a small Brooklyn apartment building, keeping herself apart...

They're four siblings: two girls, two boys. Two older, two younger. Two inseparable, two twins. In childhood they forged bonds—strong ones, deeply rooted in the family house. But now their father is gone. The house must be sold. They gather to sort through belongings, memories, the weight of what was...

"Nobody takes postcards seriously." A tweet? A text? An email? Sébastien Lapaque made his choice: he was, he is, he will be a postcard enthusiast. Because a postcard isn't just decorated cardboard with a photo on it. It's a statement. A gesture. A deliberate act of communication that requires thought, not impulse...

I promised myself: no more reading challenges. Too constraining. But this one's different—less challenge, more indulgence. It's The English Month, back for its third round, organized by Cryssilda, Lou, and Martine. The concept: dedicate one month to English literature. Simple. Appealing. I'm in...

Reading the latest issue of Archimag finally clarified what a MOOC actually is. The term's everywhere—weird, sounds like an onomatopoeia. It stands for Massive Online Open Courses. An online course, open to anyone, usually free. I decided to try one. The subject? Digital literature. Why not...

Inspector Erlendur is on vacation. He returns to the landscape of his childhood—those famous "eastern fjords" where he grew up. The place that shaped the defining trauma of his life: his younger brother's disappearance in a snowstorm. He settles in, hoping to find answers, or at least peace...

"Everything's about linguistics these days. And if it wasn't, he'd make sure it became so." Why do so many marriages fail? Communication breakdown between spouses. That's the theory, anyway. Our protagonist—a linguistics professor—decides to test this hypothesis by analyzing couples' speech patterns. Sounds academic. Gets messy...

Three months in with digital reading. I stand by what I wrote before: reading digitally is comfortable. Especially if you have bad eyesight, read a lot on public transport, or travel frequently. But here's what I'm learning: the relationship between reader, device, and the book ecosystem is more complex than I expected...

"My dreams tell me the end of the world I know is near." The 17th century. Eastern Canada—a vast territory shared by numerous indigenous tribes, including the Hurons and the Iroquois. The French establish a colony. Jesuits arrive to convert. Cultures collide. Violence erupts. Boyden tells this story from three perspectives...