december 16–31, 2018

Books

  • James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
  • Lynne Murphy, The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
  • Javier Cercas, The Impostor: A True Story, translated by Frank Wynne
  • Robert Sheckley, Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley
  • Gabriel García Márquez, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, trans. Randolph Hogan
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, trans. Edith Grossman
  • Thorkild Hansen, Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761–1767, trans. James McFarlane & Kathleen McFarlane
  • Julie J. Thomson, ed., That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson
  • Tiziano Terzani, A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
  • Iris Murdoch, A Word Child

Films

  • Shirkers, directed by Sandi Tan

december 1–15, 2018

Books

  • Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl
  • Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
  • Ryszard Kapuściński, Travels with Herodotus, translated by Klara Glowczewska
  • Domenico Starnone, Trick, trans. Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus
  • Claudia Rankine, The End of the Alphabet
  • Nigel Barley, Island of Demons
  • Malcolm X & Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Films

  • Doubles vies (Non-Fiction), directed by Olivier Assayas
  • Nuestro tiempo (Our Time), dir. Carlos Reygadas
  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

november 16–30, 2018

Books

  • Filippo-Tommaso Marinetti, Mafarka the Futurist, translated by Carol Diethe & Steve Cox
  • Domenico Starnone, Ties, trans. Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, trans. Dick Davis
  • Dag Solstad, Professor Anderson’s Night, trans. Agnes Scott Langeland
  • Amir D. Aczel, The Jesuit & the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man
  • R. O. Kwon, The Incendiaries

Films

  • Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley
  • The Hudsucker Proxy, dir. Joel Coen
  • The Big Lebowski, dir. Joel Coen
  • Le Livre d’image (The Image Book), dir. Jean-Luc Godard

books & paper

“The economic wisdom of this century can be measured by what happens with the so-called ‘compact’ editions, where there is little consumption of paper, and endless wear and tear on the eyesight. However, in defence of saving paper on books one might mention that it is the custom in this century to print much and read nothing. To this custom belongs also the abandonment of those round letters which were used generally in Europe in past centuries, and the substitution for them of long letters, to which we might add the gloss on the paper. These are things which are the more beautiful to look at the more harmful they are to the reader’s eye. But all this is very reasonable at a time when books are printed to be seen and not to be read.”

(Giacomo Leopardi, Thoughts, § 3, p. 7 in J. G. Nichols’s translation.)

november 1–15, 2018

Books

  • Shirley Hazzard, The Bay of Noon
  • Helen DeWitt, Some Trick
  • Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, translated by William Weaver
  • Cesare Pavese, The Leather Jacket, trans. Alma Murch
  • Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere
  • Pascal Quignard, A Terrace in Rome, trans. Douglas Penick & Charles Ré

october 16–31, 2018

Books

  • Sandro Veronesi, Quiet Chaos, translated by Michael F. Moore
  • Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard, trans. Archibald Colquhoun
  • Rain Chudori, Imaginary City: A Guide Book

I’ve been reading a fair amount of contemporary southeast Asian literature – this Indonesian novel picked up at random at the Ubud literary festival – and I’m not sure what to make of a lot of it, other than I can’t find a way in. This one is more formally interesting than most I’ve read: one lover takes another through her personal version of Jakarta, starting from the form of a travel guide, with photographs and full-page pullquotes. There’s a pull-out map detailing the locations described. With this, as with a lot of regional contemporary art and writing, there’s a twee quality that I can’t really do anything with: everything is attractive, but with no edge at all. The lovers sigh about the necessary end of their romance, but there’s no visible conflict. The end effect is something like a spread in Kinfolk: perhaps attractive, certainly with high production values, but not art in any way that I can understand.

  • Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone, trans. Susan Bernofsky
  • Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
  • Hwang Jungeun, One Hundred Shadows, trans. Jung Yewon
  • Roland Schimmelpfennig, One Clear, Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century, trans. Jamie Bulloch

Films

  • Sons of the Desert, directed by William A. Seiter
  • Way Out West, dir. James W. Horne
  • The Big Noise, dir. Mal St.Clair
  • The Nutty Professor, dir. Jerry Lewis
  • The Flying Deuces, dir. ‎A. Edward Sutherland 

Exhibits

  • Museum Pasifika, Nusa Dua, Indonesia
  • Art Bali 2018, Nusa Dua, Indonesia
  • Neka Museum, Ubud, Indonesia

october 1–15, 2018

Books

  • Yoko Tawada, The Last Children of Tokyo, translated by Margaret Mitsutani
  • David B., Black Paths, trans. Nora Mahony
  • Joshua Mattson, A Short Film about Disappointment
  • Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Pike: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War
  • Italo Svevo, A Perfect Hoax, trans. J. G. Nichols
  • Umberto Saba, Ernesto, trans. Mark Thompson
  • Eve Babitz, Sex & Rage
  • Luis Francia, The Beauty of Ghosts: Five Voices: A Theater of Poetry

Films

  • Senso, directed by Luchino Visconti

september 16–30, 2018

Books

  • Elsa Morante, The World Saved by Kids and Other Epics, translated by Cristina Viti
  • Giovanni Verga, Little Novels of Sicily, trans. D. H. Lawrence
  • Sergio de la Pava, Lost Empress
  • Fleur Jaeggy, I Am the Brother of XX, trans. Gini Alhadeff 
  • Violette Leduc, The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, trans. Derek Coltman
  • Cesare Pavese, _The Beautiful Summer, trans. W. J. Strachan
  • Cesare Pavese, The Beach, trans. R. W. Flint
  • Goh Poh Seng, Tall Tales and Misadventures of a Young Westernized Oriental Gentleman
  • Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends
  • Sally Rooney, Normal People
  • Lydia Millet, Fight No More
  • Cesare Pavese, Among Women Only, trans. R. W. Flint
  • Charles Bernstein, Republics of Reality 1975–1995
  • Lily Tuck, Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante
  • Charles Williams, The Greater Trumps

Films

  • WUSA, directed by Stuart Rosenberg

Exhibits

  • “Wei Leng Tay: Crossings,” NUS Museum
  • “Of Place and A Paradox,” NUS Museum
  • “Yeo Shih Yun: Diaries, Marking Time And Other Preoccupations,” NUS Museum
  • “Chow and Lin: Homeless,” NUS Museum

september 1–15, 2018

Books

  • Jean-Patrick Manchette, The Prone Gunman, translated by James Brook
  • George S. Schuyler, Black No More
  • Eka Kurniawan, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, trans. Annie Tucker
  • Edoardo Nesi, Infinite Summer, trans. Alice Kilgarriff
  • Natalia Ginzburg, The Manzoni Family, trans. Marie Evans
  • Joseph Roth, Hotel Savoy, trans. Jonathan Katz
  • Karel Čapek, War with the Newts, trans. M. & R. Weatherall
  • Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed, trans. Bruce Penman
  • Giovanni Verga, The House by the Medlar Tree, trans. Eric Mosbacher
  • Luigi Pirandello, Each in His Own Way, trans. Arthur Livingston

Films

  • 버닝 (Burning), directed by Lee Chang-dong
  • Trouble in Paradise, dir. Ernst Lubitsch
  • La terra trema, dir. Luchino Visconti

Exhibits

  • “APB Foundation Signature Art Prize 2018,” Singapore Art Museum
  • “Gilles Massot: The Probability of Veracity Part 2: The Reenactments (from analogue to digital),” Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film
  • “Darren Soh: Before It All Goes: Architecture from Singapore’s Early Independence Years,” Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film
  • “Intriguing Uncertainties,’ Parkview Museum

august 16–31, 2018

Books

  • Roberto Bolaño, Woes of the True Policeman, translated by Natasha Wimmer
  • S. A. Chakraborty, The City of Brass
  • Guy Davenport, The Death of Picasso: New & Selected Writing
  • Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
  • Amanda Lee Koh, Ministry of Moral Panic
  • Norman Lewis, An Empire of the East: Travels in Indonesia
  • Redmond O’Hanlon, Into the Heart of Borneo
  • Dorothy Iannone, This Sweetness Outside of Time: A Retrospective of Paintings, Objects, Books, and Films from 1959 to 2014

Films

  • Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back, directed by Maura Axelrod
  • Córki dancingu (The Lure), dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska
  • Jaws, dir. Steven Spielberg

Exhibits

  • “Spaces,” Ota Fine Arts
  • “From the Archives,” Mizuma Gallery
  • “FX Harsono: Reminiscence,” Sullivan & Strumpf
  • “From Now On,” Partners & Mucciaccia
  • “Si Jae Byun: Momentary,” Chan + Hori Contemporary
  • “Jia Peng: No Phase,” Element Art Space
  • “Kamin Lertchaiprasert: ‘     ‘,” Chan + Hori Contemporary
  • “Ronson Culibrina: Above Sea Level,” Yavuz Gallery
  • “Lim Tiong Ghee: Echoing Fragments,” The Private Museum