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steppingsoftlyinto

@steppingsoftlyinto

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Life in the pursuit of literature

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(Somewhat) recent reads.
After spending most of the year unemployed, the past two months have been filled with long hours and weekends of working. I haven’t had the mental capacity for longer fiction (looking at you, Schattenfroh and Your Name Here), so I’ve returned to my love of novellas to keep me sane. Jon Fosse may have written the best ending of any book I’ve read this year with ‘Morning and Evening’, and Christian Kracht’s “The Dead’ the best beginning. ‘Train Dreams’ and ‘Landscape Painter’ are practically kissing cousins with their portrayal of men gone mad in the pursuit of the divine, whatever that may be. I cannot recommend any of these books enough.

• The Dead - Christian Kracht
• Train Dreams - Denis Johnson
• An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter - César Aira
• Morning and Evening - Jon Fosse

#literature #bookstagram #novellas #denisjohnson #cesaraira #jonfosse #christiankracht #fsg #dalkeyarchivepress #newdirections #picador taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

Hello, friends.
Checking in from my absence to say that books are great and you should read them all.
In the past few months I have gone from unemployed and well-read to working non-stop with barely any time for myself. I’d like to share some of the highlights since my last post, but that’s for another day. As life returns to a somewhat-stable state, I’ll be posting with more regularity.
I had a fantastic haul today, as evidenced by the photo above. Chat soon, xoxo.

• Tirant lo Blanc - Joanot Martorell & Martí Joan de Galba
• The Eagle’s Throne - Carlos Fuentes
• The Extinction of Irene Rey - Jennifer Croft
• The Third Reich - Roberto Bolaño
• Obabakoak - Bernardo Atxaga
• HHhH - Laurent Binet
• Yonder Stands Your Orphan - Barry Hannah
• Not A River - Selva Almada
• Tali Girls - Siamak Herawi

#books #bookstagram #fiction #literature #translatedlit #robertobolaño #carlosfuentes #graywolfpress #fsg #randomhouse #grovepress #archipelagobooks taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

Hi everyone -

I’ve been quiet on here lately. My personal life has been extraordinarily stressful, and the world being on fire has diminished my capacity to do much of anything.
I’ve also been reflecting on the purpose of this account. I’m not a literary critic - I’m a reader and a writer, and I don’t have an MFA. I want to share the things that I love, especially books and authors I feel are underrepresented in the literary conversation, as it were. That means you will probably see me less, but it’s authentic to me.

Hope you’re well safe, healthy, and coping better than I have been. See you soon. by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

The books I read in May 2025.
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The trend this month was novellas, or at least novels under 300 pages. After finishing Mark de Silva’s very dense “The Logos”, I needed a breather and short fiction fit the bill.
Ultimately there were some that I enjoyed very much, some not-so-much, and some I have grown to really loathe the longer I reflect on them. Because this is Instagram, not Substack, I’ll keep my thoughts on each as brief as I can.

• The Hive - Camilo José Cela
You have probably seen me endlessly badgering everyone to read this book. A portrait of post-civil-war Madrid in the early 40s, we see the connected lives of the patrons of a café run by a tyrannical woman. Again, everyone should read this book.

• Morning & Evening - Jon Fosse
Fosse, boats, memory, death: name a more iconic combo.

• Monsieur Pain - Roberto Bolaño
Poe by way of Latin America in wartime Paris. An absolute treat.

• The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
First re-read. The 60’s, paranoid housewives, a secret mail service that may/may not exist. You know, Pynchon things.

• Michael Kohlhaas - Henrich von Kleist
Habsburg-German Don Quixote. A unsuspectingly funny tale about revenge because you’re embarrassed that someone pulled a fast one on you.

• A Mountain to the North… - László Krasznahorkai
Man’s eternal quest for beauty.

• Tell Them of Battles… - Mathias Énard
Beauty’s eternal quest for money.

• Ultramarine - Mariette Navarro
A French woman captains a cargo ship while grieving her dead father. Metaphysical hijinks ensue. I wanted to like this one, but was disappointed. Some very weird turns of phrase throughout makes me sense that something might have been lost in translation. Swing and a miss for me.

• The Logos - Mark de Silva
I could write a blog on how much I hated this book. Mark can write a sentence for sure, but it’s over-long, the characters don’t develop at all, and it doesn’t explore the premise of selling out that it sets up in the first act. Not for me, but I don’t think it’s for anyone.

#books #reading #bookstagram taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

Yesterday evening I watched Wim Winders’ film Perfect Days starring Koji Yakusho, and today, on a beautiful spring morning, I had a perfect day of my own.

I got up early to hit the farmers market and decided to make the rounds to the various flea markets and used booksellers that I don’t frequent, and found some great gems in the process.
While I already own Against the Day, I couldn’t pass up a first edition hardcover. I also somehow didn’t have this MVL, which I’ve been searching (seemingly) forever for; and what serendipity, finding Drive Your Plow and The Hearing Trumpet (featuring a foreword by Tokarczuk) at different locations.

Now I’m off to the shops again, this time to sell duplicates (I also found some DeLillo on the cheap-cheap) to keep the sprawling mess of my “library” somewhat contained.

• The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington
• V. - Thomas Pynchon
• The War of the End of the World - Mario Vargas Llosa
• The Laughing Monsters - Denis Johnson
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
• Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon

#books #reading #bookstagram #literature #usedbooks #leonoracarrington #thomaspynchon #mariovargasllosa #denisjohnson #olgatokarczuk #booksintranslation #postmodernism #nyrb #nyrbooks taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

You might say I have a certain affinity with Bolaño.

Roberto Bolaño, in my very humble, non-academic opinion, was the greatest working author of the late-20th/early-21st centuries.
Plenty of style but never short on substance, he could perhaps be fairly categorized as a bit of a nihilist, though I find a sort of beautiful humanism in his voice that carries across his writing. Maybe I’m just a nihilist myself and enjoy the company from a fellow traveler.

To borrow a bit from @beyondzeropod - if I ever had a “desert island” list, 2666 would easily be at the forefront. I could write an essay on this book and my relation to it, but I’ll save that for another day, whenever I fail to get published and start pushing a Substack link instead.

One of my goals for this year (and the next) is to improve my Spanish beyond the broken bits and bobs I currently possess. This collection of his works in their original language serve as a daily reminder of that goal, and I’m excited to read them in their unmolested form.

You might think all of the above is crazy - I hope you do - but it’s true to me and that’s all that I really care about.

#books #bookstagram #reading #literature #postmodernism #robertobolaño taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

I was gifted this thick book by a friend today - I’ve been hunting for a used copy for ages. This particular one is from 1975.

In online literary circles, the conversation is almost entirely focused on fiction, but where do you fall in non-fiction? Personally, well-written non-fiction makes up probably 25% of my diet; in addition to the research I do for my own writing, I think it’s crucial to learn as much about the world that we inhabit as we can. How can life make sense if you don’t have context?

What are your favorite non-fiction reads?

#books #reading #bookstagram #nonfiction #literature #robertcaro #biography taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

Three reads from this weekend.

Do you ever find yourself in the middle of large books and just feel the need to “refresh” your brain? I do. I liken it to “flavor fatigue”, where you eat too much of the same thing and burn yourself out, no matter how good the meal.
I enjoy fully immersing myself into the world of a novel for a long period, however I occasionally find myself pining for the taste of a different reality, or perhaps a different type of intellectual stimulation.
These three books were exactly what I needed, and were all very different books. Historical fiction, meditative quests and literary criticism, all under 200 pages.

What do you read when you need to “freshen up”?

• A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East - László Krasznahorkai
• Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians - Hugh Kenner
• Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants - Mathias Énard

#books #reading #nowreading #bookstagram #modernism #postmodernism #fiction #literarycriticism #laszlokrasznahorkai #mathiasenard #hughkenner #dalkeyarchivepress #newdirectionspublishing taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

The gems in my ever-expanding library:
Hardcover first edition, first printings.

I am very fortunate to have spent a max of $30 on any one of these books. I picked up the mint Infinite Jest for $11, which might be the find of the century for me.

• The Magic Kingdom - Stanley Elkins
• Fall & Rise - Stephen Dixon
• Arc d’X - Steve Erickson
• The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor - John Barth
• Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco
• Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
• The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt
• 30: Pieces of a Novel - Stephen Dixon
• Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon

#books #reading #bookstagram #literature #modernism #postmodernism #firsteditionbooks #thomaspynchon #davidfosterwallace #stephendixon #steveerickson #umbertoeco #johnbarth #stanleyelkins #helendewitt taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

You might say I have a thing for Don DeLillo.

The reality we inhabit in his writing is presented as absurd, but only as a means to highlight the absurdity of our actual reality. The realist prose presents these absurdities as fact, as unremarkable events in and of themselves. Among the avant-garde set, DeLillo is often viewed as fussy, overwrought and lacking in creativity, but I do not count myself among their numbers. I find his writing to be engaging and disturbingly true to life, never failing to make an impact on me in some way. Some are hits and others are misses, but one thing is for sure - anytime he’s at the plate, he’s swinging for the fences.

What authors do you have that kind of connection with?

#books #reading #bookstagram #delillo #modernism #postmodernism #literature #americanliterature taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

Indie Bookstore Day haul.

I bought something from nearly every independent book seller in the Tulsa metro area today. Who would’ve thought I would find any Rick Harsch at a used shop in the suburbs?

This haul has a little bit of everything - classics, modernism, postmodernism, poetry, drama, neo-noir, biographies… all the hallmarks of my personal taste.

What did you pick up today?

• The Recognitions - William Gaddis
• JR - William Gaddis
• Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
• The Revenge for Love - Wyndham Lewis
• Guide to Ezra Pound’s Cantos - George Kearns
• Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
• Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me
• As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
• Kairos - Jenny Erpenbeck
• War - Louis-Ferdinand Céline
• Poison, Shadow and Farewell - Javier Marías
• Paradise Lost - John Milton
• Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
• One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner - Jay Parini
• The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas - Rick Harsch
• Jim Thompson: Sleep With the Devil - Michael J McCauly
• The Complete Poems and Plays - T.S. Eliot
• Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
• The Path to Power - Robert Caro
• Nixonland - Rick Perlstein

#books #reading #bookstagram #fiction #nonfiction #modernism #postmodernism #literature #poetry #classicliterature #independentbookstoreday #ezrapound #tseliot #jimthompson #williamfaulkner #coronasazmidat #newdirectionspublishing #robertcaro #tulsa #oklahoma taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago

My “currently reading” pile.

Not gonna lie, I have worked myself into a bit of a corner here. The titles I read usually revolve around what I’m in the mood for, and I happen to love big, dense literature. Most of the time, there’s a smaller book in the rotation, but I’ve made it a point to finish at least a couple of these before moving on.

This is my fourth run at GR. Several years ago, I had multiple false starts with this book, and I just wasn’t ready for the level Pynchon was operating at here. Something finally clicked and I am enjoying it like nothing else I’ve ever read. Easily in the running for my favorite work of fiction.

Barth is a genius, and he shows it in The Sot-Weed Factor. I’ll be honest - I’m finding this one very difficult. While I really enjoy the writing and the story, the prose is written in a 17th century English, which is requiring me to really pump the brakes to fully digest it.

Pound was another genius, despite clearly being a lunatic. Ironically, his Cantos are often my “bedtime” read.

The Logos has been my most “steady” read lately. Written in a sort of realist-maximalist style, it’s almost Henry James by way of the 21st century. Very much a New York book, it’s told in first person by a nameless protagonist who chronicles his journey from “serious” artist to ostensibly a commercial one via his relationship with wealthy patrons who employ him for branding their new, mysterious products. I’m enjoying it, however I find the protagonist to be wholly unlikable as a self-involved, self-absorbed narcissist, although I admit that I think that is probably the cultural criticism de Silva is trying to make.

#books #reading #bookstagram #poetry #literature #postmodernism #modernism #pynchon #ezrapound #johnbarth #markdesilva taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @steppingsoftlyinto

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a year ago