newsletter issue 162

It’s a good month at the movies. Last weekend was spent between back-to-back shows of Ballerina and Materialists buffered by a lunch of pancakes—as it should be. A little stroll ‘just browsing’ at a nearby bookstore ended with Torey Peters’ new novel, Stag Dance, and Gary Shteyngart’s 2006 novel Absurdistan added to the bottomless pit that’s my TBR pile. (Shteyngart gave us the 2021 pandemic novel Our Country Friends. Remember those days?) Progressing with snail-like pace is my journey through The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong’s much awaited sophomore novel after the widely successful On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Nicely set up for the week ahead, right? Wrong.

As I write this, I have open in one browser window a New Yorker article titled ‘What’s Happening to Reading?’, which asks such questions like: “Is it a stretch to imagine remix culture coming to reading?” Floating in other windows are articles that seek to explain to me terms like “mankeeping” and “radwife”. Adding to the gloom is the ceaseless Mumbai rain erasing my view from the windows of the 19th floor where The Nod offices are located. Arrghh.

But then, it’s not all doom and portent on the reading fun. Because, drumroll, we’ve launched The Nod Book Club, where every month we pick the buzziest new novel to read, discuss, and dissect. (Our first pick is sci-fi novel Luminous by Korean writer Silvia Park.)

Need more things to read? We got you covered. Scroll through our top stories below.