Reading Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Apparently I'm on a "short novels in translation" kick— read Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga (translated from French by Mark Polizzotti), a novella in four overlapping parts about clashes - and mash-ups - of Christianity and traditional beliefs in Rwanda under colonization, how stories are told and who tells them and why; and The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei (translated from Chinese by Canaan Morse), which the blurb describes as "a lightly surreal story of misfortune, menace, and high-end stereo equipment in the cutthroat, capitalistic world of modern China" and, yeah, it sure is. Both were very good; I already want to re-read Ge's book, because I've been rotating its curious ending in my head since I finished it— ( ... )

Currently reading several books in various stages of progress. Almost halfway through Moby Dick, Ishmael is back on his Whale Facts; I'm on the home stretch in The Terror by Dan Simmons and just started Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman. I had also recently picked up All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield - which I'd assumed was about actual art fraud but appears to instead be about financial fraud within the art-dealing industry - but I've set it aside for the moment to prioritize Schulman's, because that one is a library book. (The Whitfield is borrowed from a friend, who at this rate will not be getting it back any time soon.)