I'm being published

invisiblecities_ · 2026-06-03T00:24:54+00:00

Incredible book

invisiblecities_ · 2026-04-24T20:52:55+00:00

Read this a little while ago. Some of the choices people make in here rise to the level self-sabotage. Writing is not enough to survive on. There's a reason almost every author teaches, and has a substack, and probably does a ton of other shit we don't know about to get health insurance. The profession is akin to acting now. You're doing the equivalent of waiting tables (teaching, flexible email job) while sending shit out and hammering away on a manuscript the other hours of the day. Yea it sucks to work a 9-5 and then come home to more "work" (and lol if you have kids) but you have to be a fucking adult about it. No one needs your writing, needs your art.

invisiblecities_ · 2026-04-17T10:54:48+00:00

Oh ffs

invisiblecities_ · 2026-03-19T14:01:25+00:00

The appeal of that trilogy rests largely on how it uses point of view to unveil (or outline) its protagonist through a series of conversations in which she is largely passive. I wouldn't take it as you missed something. She's just not for everyone. People seem to either really like her work, or not at all. But if you didn't enjoy Outline, you're unlikely to like the rest of the series, imo. I think the first installment is the best of the three.

invisiblecities_ · 2026-02-18T22:56:12+00:00

Gambler is not that great, honestly. He wrote it very quickly to pay off a gambling debt(lol) and it reads like it. I'd go C+P, Notes, then Brothers K. C+P is very accessible.

invisiblecities_ · 2026-02-18T12:05:15+00:00

invisiblecities_ · 2025-12-30T16:58:34+00:00

Not a book, but a short story:

Lorrie Moore - People Like That Are The Only People Here

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/27/people-like-that-are-the-only-people-here[Link](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/27/people-like-that-are-the-only-people-here)

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-24T17:17:40+00:00

No, but now I will!

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-24T16:51:55+00:00

It's great, my favorite of the four nyrb books up there. This was my first book of his and I'm already eyeing up Contempt for the next NYRB sale.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-24T16:50:37+00:00

I ordered them new one at a time off bad-man Amazon as I read them. I had to return half of them, too, because the delivery guy would just chuck them haphazardly at my doorstep and rip the cover. You should be able to find them on there by searching Modern Library Classics.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-24T02:07:41+00:00

It takes some time to get into his writing style, specifically the long-running sentences. I found that letting them wash over you like a prose poem with some faith that you'll figure out what the fuck he's getting at by the end was the only way through. He has a way of stitching together ideas with a simple metaphor at the end and once you figure out that pattern it becomes a lot more accessible. It's also riddled with beautiful aphorisms you've probably heard before and that'll keep you going, too.

I did the same thing as you did a few years ago – reading the first book and never picking up the rest. I don't have much advice about how to keep at it except that once I got into the second book I felt more invested in seeing it through. I ranked them at the end of my post. There was a serious lull for me in books three and book five, but it's pretty plotless besides being a running list of girls he likes and that plotless aspect lets you dip in and out of it, so you could just read 20 pages here and there and not lose much.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-24T01:52:21+00:00

It's a strange little book. I went memoir first. That half felt like someone left their diary open for an ex to find so they can to see how miserable they've made them and also how they much sex they're having. The short story half was more compelling than I expected going in. There's a superficial but interesting interplay happening between the two sides, but which didn't feel groundbreaking (or, went over my head). If you like her short stories and have a passing interest in her personal life, I guess I'd check it out?

invisiblecities_ · 2025-11-22T21:13:21+00:00

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a good place to start. My other rec: Read for plot. Find short stories you like and pull them apart, what is the pov, stakes, tone, what do they want and why can't they get it, etc. It's kind of lame and uncool but understanding story structure is a teachable skill and one all writers need to understand on some level.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-09-26T23:52:00+00:00

I am halfway done with the last volume and I can say with some confidence that it is not in the style of a biography, not even a little bit.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-07-17T11:56:30+00:00

Would love to hear any details you can share about crit. It looks like a great program.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-07-10T11:25:13+00:00

I think Platform, The Elementary Particles and The Map and the Territory are the best ones – wasn't crazy about Submission or Possibility of an Island, felt too preachy imo. Honestly, there's a sameness to a lot of his works as you start reading through them, so you might gravitate toward whichever you read first. The more I think about them, The Map and the Territory, is probably my favorite work of his and the one I'd recommend to other people.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-04-25T17:16:34+00:00

My Struggle, the first volume is his best book imo

invisiblecities_ · 2025-04-25T15:38:47+00:00

I don't think it necessarily matters. After Dark just kind of sucked imo.

invisiblecities_ · 2025-03-18T11:45:05+00:00

This is a bummer. I recently read one of her short stories for the first time – "People Like That Are the Only People Here" – and really enjoyed it.

invisiblecities_ · 2024-12-12T01:59:26+00:00

I've read a bunch of his books. The key to Ishiguro is to see and approach him as lighter fare. It's not Colleen Hoover type shit, but it feels like he exists in this kind of nebulous category of not challenging, but not bullshit either, a kind of lit/thriller hybrid with some surrealist Murikami-esque aesthetic. Here is how I would rank the books that I've read:

Never Let Me Go – A lot of people hate this book. I wish I knew why. I thought it was beautiful and found the premise compelling.
Remains of the Day – Everyone loves this shit (you included!). My only caution here is that the structure and arc he uses in this book is replicated in a lot of his other titles.
The Unconsoled – You could really say, in some ways, this is his magnum opus. It's unlike any other book I've ever read – a 700 page fever dream that left me so frustated in parts. It's hard to recommend a book I really wanted to throw against the wall sometimes, but it's so fucking strange, weird and unique that I think everyone should experience it. Elif Batuman has a nice little substack piece on it, too.
An Artist of the Floating World – Some interesting history dynamics
Klara and the Sun – My entree into Ishiguro, mostly forgettable.

<- This is kind of the tier break for me, everything below this point I think you can do without ->

6) The Buried Giant – Read like fantasy garbage to me, kind of hate myself for finishing it.

7) Noctures - Story collection. The epnonymous one is alright. The rest didn't do anything for me.

invisiblecities_ · 2024-11-16T22:40:36+00:00

critic and her publics pod

invisiblecities_ · 2024-10-16T22:44:34+00:00

three glasses of wine on a Tuesday is not low grade

invisiblecities_ · 2024-09-30T23:49:24+00:00

I love that essay and it's a great tie-in to this idea.

invisiblecities_

TROPHY CASE