November 2025
Extra books/links/whatever from the last month.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I am not sure why, but I associated this book with Oprah’s book club for many years, and thus held off on reading it. But it’s not at all conventional issues-fiction, and it is excellent.
“It’s the fate of most Ping-Pong tables in home basements eventually to serve the ends of other, more desperate games.”
Read it if you haven’t already.
The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik, which are the second and third books in the Scholomance trilogy.
The album Metamorphosis Complete by Infinity Song, of which the stand-out track is Sinking Boat:
Bad Man by Fightmaster:
Amazingly, that is their real surname.
Scratchboard art by Douglas Smith (H/T Lines and Colors), e.g.,
Bonus horse link: Michel de Montaigne on how good horses are.
A dispatch from under the local rock
It appears that Israel and Lebanon will go to war.
It also appears that Donald Trump intends to give each U.S. citizen $2,000 from tariff earnings.
In local news, Denmark has decided to use part of their budgetary surplus on reducing the VAT on books.
And the Copenhagen mayoral election has resulted in a Green Left mayor, Sisse Marie Welling, whereas previous mayors have generally been Social Democrats.