A lot can happen in a month. This month, what happened was: a lot of travel, a lot of beachcombing, a lot of quality time with loved ones, a lot of embroidering, and a lot of sport. Not a lot of book reading, but long-time subscribers might have expected that by now.
I’m showing incredible restraint not turning the May Report into a Maine Report.
What I read in May:
Andrew Dana Hudson, Absence (2026)—In terms of choosing what to read ever since I read Middlemarch (and, tbh, even before that), I keep flirting with gimbal lock. If I’m not reading something that is or should be on the latest List of the Greatest Books Published in English,1 then I’m reading something that doesn’t easily slot into a coherent narrative about my recent reading habits. Setting aside questions of the point of such a narrative at all, what I really mean is that these days I’m simply grateful for any book that I can “get lost in.”
Thus, I found myself starting Hudson’s debut novel the day my preordered copy arrived in the mail, pushing past my admittedly unhinged worry that it “wouldn’t be the right book” to read after On the Calculation of Volume, Book IV.2 Proving that I am still heavily in a Lydgate moment of life,3 4 I found Absence to be enjoyable for so many reasons, including that its explorations of time, identity, and community allowed me to continue thinking of many themes in On the Calculation of Volume and to appreciate all the different ways that writers can approach such concepts.
Still thinking about that Maine, though.
Are there many books out there that work within popular genres such as science fiction and mystery/thriller and feel original and smart and are well written and treat the reader like an adult and don’t feel like first and foremost a spec screenplay? I’m seriously asking! Absence does do all that, and more than once as I was reading it I thought, “I wish more contemporary books were like this one.”
Anyway, this was of course a perfect book for me to read, and would be perfect for me to read at any point in my life, probably, because it’s simply the kind of book that can be picked up and enjoyed by anyone who likes entering a well thought-out world and story told by an author who trusts the reader.
What I watched in May:
NBA playoffs (LGK but shout-out Wemby)
Baseball
French Open
My favorite contemporary narrative—sport!
What I’m looking forward to reading in June:
Marlen Haushofer, tr., Shaun Whiteside, The Fifth Year (1952/2026)
Jorie Graham, Killing Spree (2026)
Jane Austen, Persuasion (1817)
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1855)5
Oops! This has been the Maine Report.
1 Like all lists, wrong in many respects, but largely correct with its Top 5, and extremely correct in its assessment of the Number 1 pick.
2 I know it’s unhinged because I can’t even describe what would be “the right book” because I also can’t begin to define what “right” is in this context.
3 In that I’ve been experiencing a disconnect between what I actually know, what I think I know, and how I put that actual or perceived knowledge into action. Id est, I was wrong to think I’d have a hard time with Absence.
4 I wrote footnote #3 early in the month, shortly after I finished reading the book. Now, at the end of the month, as I’m putting together the rest of this Report, I must admit that I know even less than I thought I knew when I was writing that footnote. A very positive and very unexpected turn of events in my professional life has forced me to reconsider a subconsciously held belief that bad things are more likely to happen than good things! Truly, anything is possible!
5 Book Club Selection for June.
