B. Pladek

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

A compilation of my reading blogs from 2018 (migrated from my old website). Tove Jansson It isn’t often that I get to add a writer to my pantheon of favorites, but this winter I did. Tove Jansson’s writing for adults is a wonder (and I only say “writing for adults” because I’m still working my…