I mentioned the other week that I was feeling the weekly ‘What’s Lighting Me Up’ post had run its course, but I still wanted to engage with pop culture in an intentional way. So today I’m introducing a new format to do a quick roundup of what I’ve been listening to, reading, and watching lately before exploring a theme, trend, or event in pop culture that’s been on my mind.
Roundup
Music
It’s been a quieter couple of weeks for new music releases, which has given me a chance to get my head better around some of July’s releases, in addition to listen to the new Chappell Roan single on repeat.
Songs
- “The Subway,” by Chappell Roan (Is this The Song of the Year? It might just be!)
- “DAISIES,” by Justin Bieber (Never thought I’d ever have a Bieber song on heavy rotation, but here we are…)
- “cool,” by Michael Clifford
Albums
- The Wrong Side of 25, by Grace Davies
- Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up). by Max McNown
- Man on the Moon, by Fitz and the Tantrums
- Voyeur, by Alessi Rose
Viewing
This week, two decades late to the party, I checked out Project Runway for the first time, out of curiosity since one of my favourite drag designers is a contestant. I then discovered that the show’s official YouTube channel has entire old seasons uploaded. I randomly picked season 8 and devoured it, even as I was surprised to learn it was notorious as the season former host Tim Gunn has claimed was the worst.
Reading
My reading has been dominated for the past couple weeks by a combination of nonfiction titles and books from the Booker Prize long list. Highlights include Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney (2017). a nonfiction title about the 1918 influenza pandemic; and Endlings, by Maria Reva (2025), a formally inventive novel about a caper that is interrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In Focus: Thoughts on the Booker Prize Long List
This is the third year I’ve made an effort to read the Booker Prize long-listed titles (or at least as many of them as I can get my hands on, since many aren’t released yet, or at least not in North America). Last year I was really impressed by the books on the list, and several made my top reads of the year list (including two in my top five). That said, last year’s list was also criticized in some quarters for being too safe, for not including many books that played with form or that felt of-the-moment. And I have to say that, after having read six of the thirteen titles now, I think they may have over-corrected. These are definitely “Booker books,” that push boundaries even if it’s at the expense of accessibility or enjoyment. (A lot of the titles I’ve read currently have a Goodreads average under 3.5, which says a lot.) I’ve noticed a strong theme among the titles of interpretation and misinterpretation, representation and misrepresentation. It’s an interesting theme to be sure, and very ‘of the moment’, but it’s still jarring to see it recur so much in the nominated books.
Here’s my assessment and ranking of the books I’ve read so far:
- Endlings, Maria Reva: This title by a Ukrainian-Canadian author strikes the perfect balance of being both formally inventive and very readable. I was utterly fascinated, even as the book went to places I’d have preferred it not have. I’d say I’d be shocked if this didn’t make the short list, but the book I thought was a shoe-in to win last year didn’t even make the cut, so what do I know!? This was a home run for me, and the only of the list so far to which I’ve given a full five-star review.
- Misinterpretation, Ledia Xhoga: This novel plays with the ‘professional irony’ trope that I associate more with mediocre tv shows than literature, but it does it really well. In this case, it’s a interpreter who consistently misinterprets the world around her, to harrowing effect. My major issue with it was that it leads the reader down a few red herrings about what it’s about, and some of these were a lot more compelling than where it actually went.
- Audition, Katie Kitamura: Another ‘professional irony’ book, this time about an actress and the roles she plays both on-stage and off-. This is told in two halves, with each of the details of the first half being approached from the opposite direction in the second. It’s formally interesting and I really appreciated where this was going, but it took a big turn towards the end that lost me.
- The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller: This is very well-done but just felt like pretty obvious awards bait: two marriages torn apart during a cold winter that, oh-so-obviously symbolizes isolation.
- Universality, Natasha Brown: This book, which focuses on an intentionally incendiary British thinker who profits from rage, is very of-the-moment. But to me, it’s the worst kind of ‘of-the-moment: it puts a magnifying glass on a problem with offering no ideas on alternatives. It ends up just being the literary equivalent of poking an open wound, and I don’t think it’s all that smart of a move. (That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if this won…)
- The South, Tash Aw: This is another one that felt like awards bait: it’s very successful in its exploration of race, class, and sexuality in Malaysia in the ’00s, but ultimately forgettable to me.
Matthew Root 