Iain Smith @IainSmithNZ Twitter profile

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

8 months

My best of 2023. The table bowed a bit under the weight of these favourites - the sign of a good year.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

5 months

Tove tone: “Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own.”

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

A man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room? The Eiffel Tower runs amok? A place where night is day and nightmares are the reality? A sociable corpse misses his own funeral? Krzhizhanovsky, where have you been?

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

20 days

A random stack of the “as yet unread” from my shelves that I don’t hear much about on here. Any standouts here based on your own reading?

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

7 months

You don’t say no if you bump into Krasznahorkai in a bookshop.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

21 days

In @Dalkey_Archive we trust.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 years

The books I enjoyed most this year.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

A sprawling 800 page novel in the grand tradition of Stendhal, Tolstoy and Proust? 👀👀👀 Anyone else out there just wanting to press the fast forward to the October publication date for this one?

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

I’m calling these my pillars of faith. Three or more books by writers I’ve yet to get to. There were more than I thought so it’ll be helpful to focus my thinking when I’m next undecided between reads.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

The books I most enjoyed in 2022. It’s a stupidly teetering pile but what can I say? It was a fantastic year for books and I have no ability to further refine this 🤷‍♂️

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

11 months

Now I know what you all mean. I read this beautiful, tormented book before the world wakes, and there is no other world while I read it. I am completely in thrall during those waking hours.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

Plans for upcoming holiday, in between some South Island sightseeing.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Now that we’ve made it to midyear here are my faves so far. Divine Days was a true standout and one I’ll return to.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

Misfortune was my only sign… Get your bleak in a one-sit hit. This is slim, grim and good.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

Bit of a recap - top to bottom, my top three, 2021-2024, all mind-blowing. What’re yours?

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

A bit of brick appreciation goes a LONG way and I’m a sucker for that as you can see. Limiting myself here to 1000pp+ hardcovers and I’m curious to know what else is out there within that constraint…

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

“This exercise works like this: he walks over to the wall, puts his back up against it and stands there in an attitude of utter resignation. For a minute or two. And that's all. The exercise is over. He can begin to live.” You’ll thank me later, I’m sure.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

5 months

Swooped in for the kill with this edition of Dhalgren making a rare appearance for cheap in the wild today. I hear it’s good…

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

No good reason why this sat on my shelf for 20 years. We all make mistakes.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

“Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more…”

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

Snuck in a couple more for the TBR that I’ve seen talked up around here.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

That Tavares has got me thinking about the long games I play, chipping away at series gathering. These are the “incompletes” on my shelves (albeit some are not fully written or translated yet).

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

9 months

This is one of those “I love big books and cannot lie” posts. These are the unread chunksters I’ve bought this year so far, with apologies from Gertrude Stein who was reluctant to leave my TBR.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 month

Stack ‘em, pack ‘em and rack ‘em. Running out of shelf space means slow down, just slow down - but how d’you think that’s going to go with new Lutz, Haber, Krasznahorkai, Kaga etc.? 🤷‍♂️

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

You like the immersion of a big book but you don’t have the bandwidth for 1000 pages so here are some ideas to help you hit the sweet spot. I haven’t read them all. After all, this is really just an excuse to slip ANIMAL MONEY and MONUMENT MAKER into your feed.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

Tentative reading plans for the rest of the year and probably a little beyond. Plus Ulysses.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

10 months

There are always so many books I want to read and my plodding pace just can’t keep up. These are today’s taunters, but it could just as easily be a whole different lineup tomorrow. On the bright side there’s plenty to look forward to.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 years

A trip away has just gone down the gurgler so, to hell with it, I’m planning my reading for the next 3-6 months.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

A random stack of books I’d like to read but just the small matter of some other stacks I need to get through first. In my mind these aspirational piles change pretty much all the time.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

11 months

The four best books I’ve read so far this year, not that it’s cut and dried.

Travel Through Stories

@travelstoriesyt

11 months

The four best books I've read so far this year:

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

Two out of the blue from a very close friend. It’s like they read my mind.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

18 days

Ok, lights out, but for the record, it was a mail day, and a great one.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

If you have not read The Third Policeman, I urge you to. It is a small piece of perfection. A great curiosity, a very difficult piece of puzzledom, a snorter. It’s a stone cold masterpiece.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

So I’ve been on holiday, had to travel light. It’s time to set some stretch goals for the rest of the year.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

Target acquired.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

A bumper week for deliveries, more paving stones of good intentions.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

This weekend I had the contents of my skull rearranged in the very best way.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

9 months

I know I harp on about big books. I just love them and, with rising costs and challenging logistics, it’s close to a miracle they get published - so I kind of feel obliged! But I love shorties too, of course. Here’s a bumper crop in all their sub-200 glory.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

The intellect has failed us.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 month

That we might with equanimity one day observe our own burial or burning, freed at last into a new conscious state.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

Auckland takeaways. Gulp.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

Gathering my Patrick Whites for a family photo. There’s still room for growth. WTV and Stephen Dixon collections looking over their shoulders, but not too concerned.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

The propagation of TBR stacks in my home creates shelf space, inviting even more books into the fold but, in truth, evidences a deepening obsession and perpetually shifting priorities. Where there was one, now there are three, and I just keep chipping away.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

“He felt as though, with aeroplanes spying down upon every retreat like ubiquitous vultures…with no sea, no lake, no river free from throbbing, thudding engines, the one thing most precious of all in the world was being steadily assassinated.”

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

A good day for hard covers, these three clocking in together at a cool 1720 pages. Cairo sure is one small print monster.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

Get an eyeful of this dazzling first sentence. Better yet, the whole shebang. And, why not? Soon to be published Greta and the Great War - it’s looking like I will.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

I harp on about TBR piles, but then there are the collections that are TBR clusters in and of themselves, dwarfing their doorstop counterparts. I’m sort of kind of glad my reading future is not faced down by more of these.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

Anyone else ever want to read everything all at once? I do and these ones are seriously preying on my mind.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 month

Weekends are great, but weekends with mail are even better.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

7 months

To call me agog would be an understatement.

Zach Issenberg

@ZIssenberg

8 months

Everyone, I have incredible news! Sergio De La Pava has a new book coming out before the end of 2024. From what he's told me, it's his most stylistically experimental, mixing genre and form into an obliterating exploration of morality. Keep an eye out for news this spring.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

This was peak misery: “And nothing reeks like the leprous stench left in us by past evil, or like the hopeless rot choking us in that chamel-house of aborted hopes which is all our sad life amounts to almost from birth!” The winding vice of the whole page slaps.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

It’s like these guys are all queued up to get into the house and eventually I oblige. It was inevitable.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

I’m re-shelving in a futile effort to keep the books at bay. It’s timely to pay tribute to @Dalkey_Archive , the publisher that has most influenced my reading over the years. I will never stop buying their books.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

5 months

The latest and greatest from @unitybookswgtn

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

9 months

Constant book churn means that the “bedside TBR” goes from this to that. How refreshing!

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Cover reveal for the first unabridged edition of The Obscene Bird of Night, due in a new translation from Megan McDowell courtesy of @NewDirections in March 2024. It’s gloriously demented, grotesque, manic, polyphonic, insane. The best kind of literary imprisonment.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

Impossible for me not to read an 1100 page slab graced with a cover like this (Christian Allegory by Jan Provost, 1510-1515). I’m going to dash myself on the rocks of its siren song soon.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Some prosed-up books I never (or seldom) see mentioned ‘round these parts. You could do worse…

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Recently cornered this classic at @TwinRiversHV and slowly my meagre NYRB stash grows. From the introduction: “It might be the most unheralded important American novel from the 1960s.”

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

I might be on a Compass bender now but my other read, Gilead, deserves special mention. I have been finding it deeply calming and wise, operating at a deep “back to basics” human level that’s the perfect antidote to the manic day to day. It’s a meditative experience.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

8 months

From the quit while you’re ahead camp, my favourite reads of 2024. Any year with Beloved in it is a great year I’ve come to realise.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

11 months

All the recently acquired books have to go somewhere, so it’s a big shelf rearrangement on the cards for today.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

5 months

Yeah it’s great devouring books but I want a book that devours me and I feel strongly that I’ve come to the right place.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 month

It’s not often I go all in with back to back reads, especially to the tune of nearly 2,000 pages, but I’ve had this one in my sights for a while. Any improvement on Wolf Solent will do me just fine.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

Immediately I’m hooked.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

I mean, that’s my kind of book.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

The arrival of spring here means warmer, longer days and, as with today’s haul, uplifting books.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

28 days

Inspired by @ZIssenberg to celebrate the fine output of @archipelagobks - and I’m not even scratching the surface with this tower to which I’d happily add Stone Upon Stone, among others. Any recommendations to make this lean more greatly appreciated!

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

11 months

“In order to survive, you have to live as if you are dead.” The desolation of Death in Spring is palpable. This is one of those immense small books that floors you. Find a quiet place for it and you’ll see what I mean.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

If they come to my home one at a time they think I won’t notice.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

The first obvious connection between these two keepers, apart from merely taffy-stretching the novel’s true potential. Early days on Tigers but it’s been unputdownable, a careening, free-wheeling carnival of language with all the colour of pre-Castro Havana you could hope for.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

8 months

I have too many books. No. I don’t have enough NYRB books.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

Big day today

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

The rest of today’s action was dominated by NYRB. Shoutouts to Hard to Find Books, The Green Dolphin Bookshop and Jason Books.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

The Third Policeman is my first Flann O’Brien. Call it delayed gratification. Strong first page is as good as any other out there.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

“…there could never be an end to the rescue of men from the rubble of their ideas.” Playing catch-up here to say that I’ve been humbled by how good Riders in the Chariot is, though it has been no surprise. Patrick White is one of the pinnacles, I’m learning.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

If my NYRB collection is meagre then my Open Letter Books stack is woeful numbers-wise. I seriously love their books so any recommendations out there for me to grow this?

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

If you need any further confirmation of just how screwed we all are, may I point you to the bombed out far future of Riddley Walker? It’s quite good.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

Two more to add to my Yourcenar tally which now stands at five. All are unread but sometimes, well, you just KNOW.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

11 months

It’s retry time as I look to go down another rabbit hole.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

My birthday today - book presents rock!

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

8 months

There’s nothing wrong with using small books as a rearguard action to boost books read for the year. Train Dreams is incredibly good by the way.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

3 months

“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them…”

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

10 months

All these series are starting to get the better of me. High time I made some plans for next year.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

I like the idea of books as stepping stones. With that, Compass has me pointed in a very clear direction purchase-wise. Leg Over Leg and The Blind Owl both camped in my watch list for far too long.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

Calling time on my pursuit of this white whale. Third time lucky so I’m pinching myself.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 months

“And the undead wouldn't remember memories so much as be shepherded by them, tugged by headaches toward recalled geographies.” I’ve been looking forward to this…

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

Documenting my problem. A random stack of some of the bigger books in my ridiculous TBR.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

I have started and I’m in for a treat, it’s safe to say.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

5 months

I don’t know how this happens. (I do know how this happens.)

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Books bought on holiday, all together for a family photo. Worked out at about one a day so, uh, very restrained. Big shelving re-jig needed, not to mention a good old buying moratorium.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Need something to look forward to? Well, there’s these.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

My current fix has me.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

6 months

The open wound divide wrought by colonisation gets painfully filtered through small town Australia in this seething lament. Not many books feel so right in their marrow and Alexis Wright is as exhilarating a writer as you could hope to find, late as I am in saying so.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

10 months

I insisted on the fairy lights.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

4 months

Stairway to heaven.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

Rectified a deficiency today.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

2 years

This behemoth is a hands down all-timer for me. It’s an all-consuming Rabelaisian free jazz riff of the African American experience told through a cacophony of sit-back stories and manic word-play. Shelve alongside Ulysses, Young, Gaddis, Gass, WTV, McElroy. You know what I mean.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Pretty stoked to finally get a copy of this reclusive rascal.

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Iain Smith

@IainSmithNZ

1 year

Two books I loved when recently on the hoof. Both laments from Mexico but so so different. Pedro Paramo: ineffable, dreamlike and beautifully sparse. A surreal lesson in economy. Hurricane Season: an unremitting avalanche of vitriol, misery and despair. Hands over the face stuff.

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