WRBA Review: April
My Favorite Book from April
I’ve been busy with work and family these past couple of weeks, so Who Reads Books Anymore has been on the back burner, but it’s better late than never for the April roundup, so here we are.
If my tardiness wasn’t rude enough, I’m also going to jump the queue with a book recommendation of my own: Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas.
I loved this book.
It’s about writers who choose to stop writing; for example, Arthur Rimbaud, the prodigious French poet who wrote a series of blazing masterpieces by age 20, then decided he’d rather be an arms dealer in Ethiopia.
Why?
Well, Bartleby & Co. explores that question in comical detail, blurring the line between fact and fiction while unraveling the narrator’s own literary and personal preoccupations (e.g., his hunchback) that led him to stop writing. The narrative is delivered in a series of footnotes that plunder the life histories of other ex-writers to uncover their own peculiar psychologies. Paradoxes abound, including the existence of the book itself.
That sounds pretty odd because it is. But it’s delightfully odd, especially if you are a writer who has ever wondered what might happen if you simply came to your senses and quit.
Strange temptations aside, we can now move on to the saner recommendations from all the lovely strangers who spoke to me last month in the name of pseudoliterary research and adventure.
Books Recommended on WRBA
OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET by C. S. Lewis
Just really interesting and cool. Not like anything else I’ve read.
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. Le Guin
Maybe one of the best sci-fi books ever written.
THE KIND WORTH KILLING by Peter Swanson
It was so twisty. I don’t wanna give too much away, but somebody died who you never expected to die. It was like, oh my god, I can’t believe they killed him. I loved it.
SLOW HORSES by Mick Herron
[On the best mystery writer.] Not Agatha Christie. They’re false clues. It’s just jacking you around. The guy I’d sic ‘em onto now is Mick Herron.
VERITY by Colleen Hoover
It’s one we’re still talking about in our book club.
STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED by Kasie West
A couple pretends to be a couple and goes to therapy together, and then they start dating.
GILD by Raven Kennedy
We have not been able to keep the Plated Prisoner series in stock since we opened.
Support the Show
Thanks so much for reading the WRBA Review and watching the show. I hope this series offers a fun way to discover new books and better understand the role books play in our culture.
If you’d like to support the project, please consider purchasing my first novel (available now) and/or my second novel (coming September 2026).
Proceeds allow me to buy food + coffee (short-term goal) while moving me one step closer to my dream of being a full-time book person (long-term goal).
Thanks again,
Will Pass