What We've Been Reading: August 2022

Welcome! You've reached the place where we, on a monthly basis, round up what the Lighthouse team have been reading. You can check out round-ups from previous months amongst our Read Think Act posts.

In August we've been running around creating our Book Fringe, so reading outside of that may have happened less than usual. Still, we did find some radiance and true gems. Here are a few notes from the team, followed by other reads from the month!

Jess: I've just read Twilight Zone and Space Invaders, both by Nona Fernandez and they're excellent. Both novels (one long, one very short) are about experiences of growing up under Chile's military dictatorshop in the 1980s. Complicating capacity for evil deeds, they play with horror and sci-fi culture of the time without nostalgia and, interestingly, without making any of the horror supernatural - it's always unflinchingly focused on real-life societal and political violence, and the perspectives of people living their lives alongside it. Fernandez's new novel/essay comes in English next year and I cannot wait!

Jim: I'm reading Light by M John Harrison, which is a delightfully weird science fiction novel with several disparate narratives, overlapping mysteriously...

Noor: Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong - raw and compelling, there are moments in this collection where Vuong really manages to capture the weird reality of living with grief. Also reading A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers and Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada.

Christina: I read Tiny Moons by Nina Mingya Powles which was a very beautiful, expansive, insightful and sensory food memoir of eating and living in Shanghai (huge thanks to Noor for the recommendation!). I also read A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, and have started Against Memoir by Michelle Tea.

Anita: Currently reading The Nerves and their Endings by Jessica Gaitan Johannesson. it's just so good!! So powerful and beautifully written and I am reading it slowly because it's making me think and feel a lot! I've also started An Immense World by Ed Yong, which is about the world as perceived by other species' senses, it's fascinating and quite magical to think about.

Peach: reading Communion by bell hooks. It’s very insightful and introspective, plus it’s quite autobiographical which marks a difference to her other works, but it lends itself to the content very well.

Below you'll find all these titles and others we've dipped into this month.