the bookshelf: what i'm reading

Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad translated from Norwegian by Agnes Scott Langeland

"He often felt that he had failed to understand [art], indeed, more often then he would admit, it left him in a state of incomprehension, confusion, indifference, even after he had used all his astuteness to understand only a snippet of it. It could make him feel desparate...........But on the other hand, what pleasure he could experience if, after a long struggle with, for instance, a modernist poem, he suddenly understood it! He had, for that matter, felt the greatest joy when he understood intuitively, directly. Why? Because then his own searching and restless and frequently maladjusted soul melded, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, with the greatest minds of his time, he had felt enlightened, and at the very highest level." (page 31)

The short instruction manifesto for relationship anarchy by Andie Nordgren translated from Swedish by the author

"Love is abundant, and every relationship is unique."

The Complete Talking Heads by Alan Bennet

"I was perfectly all right on the Monday. I was perfectly all right on the Tuesday. I was perfectly all right on the Wednesday. I was perfectly all right on the Thursday until lunchtime, when I just ate a little poached salmon:  five minutes later, I was rolling about on the floor."

High Conflict: why we get trapped by Amanda Ripley

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes

"They lived a double life. There was the tangible reality around them and there were the images, also all around them." (page 51)

"They would have liked things to go back to how they were before. Either that or they needed a drastic change. It had all become too samey. Something needed to be rethought. But what?" (page 77) 

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödro¨n

The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marganita Laski

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Psychonauts by Mike Jay

How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir by Molly Jong-Fast

These Truths by Jill Lepore

Mutual Aid by Dean Spade

Somebody Should Do Something by Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva and Daniel Kelly

Not Me by Eileen Myles

Playing and Reality by D.W. Winicott

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-James

"Each of us is a potential lunatic, young man. Fantasizing is the norm. Each of us sits astride the border of our own inner world, and the outer one, balancing dangerously. It's a very uncomfortable position, and not many succeed in maintaining their equilibrium." (page 230)