Books

• Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians

I still need to finish A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. I like how wonderfully oral McBride’s writing is; it loses power when a character’s monologue takes over the narrative and perspective is lost (as well as the distinctive voice). But a very well-done book. More books should be written like this.

• Georges Simenon, Maigret Meets a Milord, translated by Robert Baldick
• Álvaro Enrigue, Sudden Death, trans. Natasha Wimmer

There are a lot of reasons I should like this book: its preoccupations with Rome, Caravaggio, and the early history of Mexico City. But it feels a little too much like a research novel. Probably not fair to read this so soon after the death of John Berger: it suffers when compared to G.

• Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets, trans. Tony White
• Rosamond Lehmann, Dusty Answer

Is there a reason New York Review Books has not reprinted this? Could be shelved next to Denton Welch or Alain-Fournier.

• Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea

Someone should have a project of recreating all the terrible-sounding meals described in this book and putting them in a gallery to rot without refrigeration.

• Paul Murray, The Mark and the Void

This book is a probably twice as long as it needs to be, but it feels important: somebody’s using fiction to scrutinize how capitalism works, or doesn’t work, now. The subplot about the place of art inside of capitalism doesn’t come off as well, but it’s still a good effort.

Films

• Julieta, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
• The Cocoanuts, dir. Robert Florey & Joseph Santley
• Horse Feathers, dir. Norman Z. McLeod
• Monkey Business, dir. Norman Z. McLeod
• Everybody Wants Some!!, dir. Richard Linklater
• The Lathe of Heaven, dir. David Loxton & Fred Barzyk