Michael Hingston Newsletter

Dec 31, 2023 | michaelhingston.substack.com | A. S. Byatt |Michael Hingston

[This post is an addendum of sorts to my regular monthly newsletter, which you can read and subscribe to here. You can find all of my reading lists, dating back to 2009, on my website; this list is also duplicated there.]Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)William Gerhardie, Futility (1922)Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) (re-read)Tom Roston, The Writer’s Crusade (2021)John McPhee, Draft No. 4 (2017)Richard J. King, Ahab’s Rolling Sea (2019)Luisa Valenzuela, Up Among the Eagles (1983, trans.

Nov 30, 2023 | michaelhingston.substack.com | Michael Hingston

As we turn the corner into the last month of the year, I always feel a little adrift. I want to look back and start taking stock of things, but I also want to peek ahead at the year to come. This year’s work is winding down; next year’s hasn’t quite come into focus yet. I have a brand-new 2024 daytimer sitting in front of me that I can’t wait to mark up—I just don’t know what needs to be written down yet.

Oct 31, 2023 | michaelhingston.substack.com | Michael Hingston

When Try Not to Be Strange was published, in September 2022, a topical yet somewhat awkward news peg presented itself: the most recent king died, mere days before publication. (At that same time, two copies of the book inscribed to him were making their way across the Atlantic Ocean, never to arrive.)The awkwardness stemmed from the fact that Javier Marias had much more going on in his life than the Kingdom of Redonda. And yet the question remained: Who was going to succeed him? Well, now we know.