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Trevor Arrowood

@arrowoodarchives

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Simply a high school English teacher that is addicted to reading and rating a wide range of books.

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As the song says, allow me to reintroduce myself!
Today marks one year (and one week!) of being on Instagram as a book page. My name is Trevor and I am a high school teacher in the US. While my main hobby is reading, I also love watching movies and television, entertaining my two cats (Sela is pictured, Pluto is elsewhere on my account), and living my best life with my wife!
This post is meant to be an “updated” version of my very first post. Same style of photo, but with my updated list of books I constantly am thinking about and authors I can’t get enough of. If you’ve been following my page for some time now, none of the pictured books should surprise you. If you are new, I hope you can find some new books and authors to enjoy.
My goal of this page is simply to create a community for myself and others to feel comfortable to be themselves and love the books they do. I may not share the same taste as everybody, but man, I will never look down at anybody for reading, no matter the genre. Reading is reading. And reading creates a radical empathy that can change the world. Books can and will change the way you view the world and others, which will always have ripple effects.
The book community is an awesome one, and I’m so grateful for all of the connections I’ve made over the past year. And I can only hope to help others feel connected like others have helped me. (To those that are tagged, thank you!! To those I couldn’t add because I could only tag 20 accounts, thank you too!!!)
So, after all of that, keep reading, keep talking about books, keep making a difference in the world! by @arrowoodarchives

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6 months ago

2026 Reading Goal!!
This is my essential TBR for next year: I want to average 1 chunky book (500+ pages) and 1 small book (<350 pages) every month. So here are 12 chunky and 12 small books with a variety of entertaining viewing angles.
(I have other books I want to read and that might fit onto this list, but these are among the essential of essentials!)

#reading #read #book #book #2026readinggoal #norweiganwood #murakami #bigbooks #shortbooks #literature #knausgaard #mcewan #antkind #mysteuggle #mysteuggleseries #enard #williamgass #thetunnel #nyrb #ndpublishing #ndp #bomarzo #archipelago #dalkeyarchive #translatedliterature #lorriemoore #thegodofsmallthings #atonement #gaddis #therecognitions #lispector by @arrowoodarchives

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10 months ago

Hello book world! My name is Trevor and I’m a high school English teacher! I’ve been a long time reader and reviewer, and as I’ve tumbled into the bookstagram community, I’ve found myself wanting to join! So here I am with a handful of favorite reads. For those following along, welcome and thank you for your support! by @arrowoodarchives

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2 years ago

A shelfie Sunday, some might say. Enjoy scrolling through the collections of books that makes me smile every time I look them! by @arrowoodarchives

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a day ago

There is No Antimimetics Division by QNTM

My one read to contribute to Sci-Fi September was an extremely quirky read that left me with a lot of questions. This creepy read is all about an Antimimetics Division of an agency trying to understand the properties of “Unknowns” that cause memory loss to different degrees. As the effects of these Unknowns become more and more severe, larger-scale consequences begin to unfold (or, rather, begin to be remembered).
While this book can come off as a fun sci-fi read that challenges the reader’s mind to understand lost memory and how to recover it, deeper down it feels like something written to communicate humanity’s fear of what we don’t know and what we will never know/understand. The book felt like the universe; somehow it is expanding despite the fact that there’s nowhere else to go. The paradoxical effect of reading There is No Antimimetics Division felt like the point. You weren’t supposed to understand the mechanics. You were supposed to forget like the characters did. Maybe, just maybe, the unknown could become less scary if you didn’t remember that it was an unknown. Just maybe. by @arrowoodarchives

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2 days ago

The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay (@david.scott.hay.official), published by Whiskey Tit Books

The Butcher of Nazareth is a book that from the start subverts all expectations. This is the story of one of them men who helped murder children due to Herod’s decree in response to Jesus’s birth. However, years later, the Butcher knows that his “mark” escaped what is dubbed The Culling, and that he must finish his “mission.”
However, the story isn’t that simple. The Butcher himself is met with various accounts of beauty and humanity that challenge him; he is also met with horrors that he himself couldn’t imagine, already being haunted by his own atrocities. The juxtaposition of his thoughts and others’ actions create a disconnect that ferment into explosive thoughts and actions. The Butcher’s sanity crumples more and more as he closes in on Jesus in Nazareth.
The Butcher’s mission changes often and his desires waver in ways that show an intense internally moral struggle. Hay forces the reader to confront brutality in a way that is both unreal and real. Despite its genre of “horror,” The Butcher of Nazareth reads much more like a critique of power and questioning of destiny itself. Parts of the book are physically hard to consume, but at the end, there feels as if there is some enlightenment. by @arrowoodarchives

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5 days ago

Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow by Iana Boukova (translated from Bulgarian by Elaterina Petrova), published by NYRB (@nyrbooks)

Happy publication week to Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow, a sneaky set of “interrelated” stories that slowly, but surely, look to unravel the ideas of storytelling. Each story follows a character that is marked by some sort of quest (either a clear one or an obscured one). Nestled within these stories are hints that maybe, just maybe, fiction in of itself is reality, and that reality is also only a figment of one’s imagination. The paradoxical relationship that storytelling has on these narratives makes the read intoxicatingly surreal at times.
The character development is very sharp, and the language is cutting throughout. This is a book you should rush to get. It may fly under the radar for some, but it should be in the upper-echelon of contemporary fiction. by @arrowoodarchives

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9 days ago

Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic ending to his thematically linked Apocalypse Quartet is one for the books. It is one of those few books that will make you laugh hysterically as you simultaneously question the status of your humanity.
At the basest level, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming is exactly about what the title describes: the Hungarian baron, Bela Wenckheim, returning home after spending decades ruining his reputation in Argentina via gambling. His now derelict hometown catches wind of this and rumors swirl that lead to the baron becoming the image of a savior prior to his arrival (even though he is nothing more than a tall and timid man who has nothing truly left to his name — sort of).
However, this simple plot line begins to become murky when you start the novel with the Professor: a hermit-like character that has decided to desert what he finds to be the desultory life of the city and other people. His tale both takes a fore- and background amidst the come up and let down of the baron’s story. As the two drift past one another, certain violence erupts that includes corrupt city officials, a neo-Nazi biker gang, lost love, a lack of fuel, and a slot-machine empire.
Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming is a book that defies expectations in the best way possible. Its apocalyptic themes are truly biblical in nature even amongst the humor. It may be my favorite of LK’s novels. Time will tell, I suppose.
The Apocalypse Quartet will surely be burned into the inner confines of my mind for life. The thematic tetralogy works together like sparks at a gas station; they burn everything down with intricate explosions. I can’t wait to read the four books again in the future. by @arrowoodarchives

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10 days ago

Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector (translated by Benjamin Moser), published by New Directions (@ndpublishing)

Apple in the Dark is an exceedingly singular novel; its singularity is contained in the way Clarice herself referred to the book as “the best one” and how she also stated that “I can’t define it.” In particular, I agree with Clarice’s second comment; there is no one way to define Apple in the Dark. One can try, and I will, but it can’t be grasped, it’s like searching for something you’ve lost in the pitch black night during the dark of the moon.
On the surface, this novel is about Martim, a man who has committed a crime, one that has led to a pseudo-amnesia of not only his past, but of his inner-being. Martim’s selfhood has been erased and the book opens with him wandering in the wilderness attempting to find something (himself, truth, divinity?), and stumbles upon Vitoria’s farm. The farm is gripped by drought, and Martim’s appearance is an uncanny moment within its history; it is a deluge and sweeping fire simultaneously that leads to a variety of confusions. Martim, amidst this find, is still lost internally. The book truly centers on his recentering and how he re-creates and re-locates his selfhood in proto-disastrous ways. The narrative is slippery; once you feel like you grasp it, the lines wriggle away from you again. I felt as if I was plunged into my own inner night as I read this one. It really isn’t like any of what I’ve read by Clarice, but it’s exactly the same, as antithetical as that is. by @arrowoodarchives

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14 days ago

A little bit of treating myself on a Saturday morning. Special shoutout to @shelflifebooksrva for half of this haul. Their store made for some impossible choices! Also, many of y’all had some intense influences on me with these books! by @arrowoodarchives

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16 days ago

I won’t lie, @briansbooks.richmond just provided probably my best book haul ever. Consider it a graduation gift to myself. by @arrowoodarchives

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24 days ago

September hopefuls! Can anybody take a gander which one is my only “I will read” for the month?
Any specifics you’d recommend? by @arrowoodarchives

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a month ago