Jan 1Vincennes Big List of Books 2022Vincennes Review of Books 2022 is here! Key: * = Excellent, highly recommend ~ = Actively bad, do not recommend First reads The Dinner — Herman Koch Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston Naples ’44 — Norman Lewis How to Kidnap the Rich — Rahul Raina The Trip to…Books3 min readBooks3 min read
Jan 1Vincennes Review of Books 2022Let’s start, per tradition, with a graph: A solid 22% of these were business books. …Books6 min readBooks6 min read
Mar 4, 2022Interview with Wioletta Hass-Lipinska, headteacher and activistWioletta Hass-Lipinska is a community activist, working with a network of Polish and Scottish organisations to collect and ship supplies for Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Wioletta! It’s so good to be talking to you — please would you talk my readers through who you are and what you do? My…Interview4 min readInterview4 min read
Jan 1, 2022Vincennes Contextless List of Books 2021Vincennes Review of Books 2021 is here! Key: * = Excellent, highly recommend ~ = Actively bad, do not recommend First reads Priestdaddy — Patricia Lockwood * Figuring — Maria Popova ~ Severance — Ling Ma Mothball Day — Matthew D’Cruz The Lying Life of Adults — Elena Ferrante An Artificial Revolution — Ivana…Books2 min readBooks2 min read
Jan 1, 2022Vincennes Review of Books 2021What is this! A new colour on a graph? This marks a new era of the Vincennes Review of Books, the genesis of which was me figuring out what reading is for me when I’m not at university and can read whatever I want. So those green bars represent that…Books6 min readBooks6 min read
Jan 1, 2021Vincennes Big Old List of Books 2020Vincennes Review of Books 2020 is here! Key: * = Excellent, highly recommend ~ = Actively bad, do not recommend First reads Never Mind — Edward St Aubyn Bad Blood —John Carreyrou * Bad News — Edward St Aubyn Marriage, a History — Stephanie Coontz Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout Some Hope —…Books3 min readBooks3 min read
Jan 1, 2021Vincennes Review of Books 20202020 offered plenty of opportunities to look at bar charts, I hope you are okay to start 2021 with one more: I read 88 books in 2020, making it my second biggest year of reading on record, by one book. I have always assumed that my reading habits are driven…Books6 min readBooks6 min read
Jun 19, 2020Interview with Kelly Wright, SociolinguistKelly Wright is a linguistics researcher at the University of Michigan, using algorithms to uncover unconscious bias. I interviewed her about data, race and language. Kelly, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your work? I call myself an experimental sociolinguist. I’m primarily interested in the intersection of…Interview5 min readInterview5 min read
Mar 27, 2020Interview with Ann Wroe, Obituaries Editor at The EconomistAnn Wroe edits the Obituaries column of The Economist and is a huge part of what makes that magazine a joy to read. I interviewed her about life, writing and public grief. Please tell my readers a little about yourself. I’ve been the Obit Editor here for 17 years now…Interview5 min readInterview5 min read
Mar 27, 2020Vincennes Guide to GriefWhen I was twenty I lost my mother, in the most profound experience of grief in my life to date. Later, I found the Kübler-Ross stages of grief to be a useful and powerful model to work and think with. …Grief4 min readGrief4 min read
