Books Read January 2026
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. I finished this in the first week of the year, and at four month's distance it has been partially occluded by the mammoth bulk of The Mirror and the Light, which I finished a couple of weeks ago. Bring Up the Bodies is Thomas Cromwell in his imperial phase, this man of many talents busy accruing power and privilege, and generally working things out to his - and, it must be said, king and country's - advantage. The through-line here is the downfall of Anne Boleyn and her coterie of gentlemen admirers, and the concomitant rise of the demure future queen Jane Seymour. I love Wolf Hall and honestly this is just as good: sophisticated, funny, alive. Mantel was such a unique talent. What a mind. (5/5)
Neuromancer [reread] and Count Zero by William Gibson. As an act of imagination and (yergh) world-building, Neuromancer remains a startling, appropriately immersive piece of work. I think I've come to better appreciate Gibson's prose and enjoy its Beat-esque rhythms. Count Zero is, perhaps inevitably, a step down - more conventional, less thrilling - but still very enjoyable. (5/5 & 4/5)
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. I haven't read Waugh in years, so I'm not sure if it's that this book isn't up to his best or I'm no longer receptive to his satire but I didn't warm to The Loved One. I'm the last person to object to making fun of Americans (#notallamericans) but Waugh's gripes with the place are typically elitist, obnoxious, and superficial. Still, it's very short, and Waugh can write a sentence. (2.5/5)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. If you google "the forgotten Brontë" you get dozens of articles and posts about Anne "the forgotten Brontë" who is now so thoroughly forgotten that people can't get enough of hearing about how forgotten she is. But it's true that she is a lesser light in the Brontë extended universe, the Green Lantern to Charlotte and Emily's Superman and Batman. (Branwell = Two-Face.) The bulk of Tenant is a first-person account of a loveless Victorian marriage, replete with coercive control, mental and verbal abuse, and neglect. It's completely horrifying and incredibly attuned to the complexities of interpersonal power, and the abject position of women in a society that grants them little if any agency. Gripping stuff, let down only by the obligatory turgid frame narrative in the voice of a massive drip of a man. (4/5)
The Trouble With Harry by Jack Trevor Story. The trouble is that it's not very funny. Good film, though. (2/5)
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai, translated by Donald Keene. Found this frustratingly obtuse and quite tedious. Willing to accept that this is entirely my fault. (2/5)