Weekly Readings #211 (02/16/26-02/22/26)

A weekly newsletter on what I’ve written, read, and otherwise enjoyed.

Welcome back to Grand Hotel Abyss! This week the journal Romanticon released “Opposite of Good: Emily Brontë’s Bible of Hell from Page to Screen,” my essay on Emerald Fennell’s controversial Wuthering Heights adaptation. If you can’t get enough of classic 19th-century novels, there’s also The Invisible College, my literature podcast for paid subscribers to this Substack. This week I posted “What Do I Know? What Do I Want? What Do I Love?,” two hours on the middle third of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Next week, we wrap up Tolstoy and prepare ourselves to move on to Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov. You can peruse the 2026 schedule and consult the ever-expanding two-year archive, with almost 100 two- to three-hour episodes on subjects from Homer to Joyce, and from ancient to contemporary literature. Thanks to all my current and future paid subscribers! Finally, if you haven’t read my acclaimed Major Arcana, which has been called “the elusive great American novel for the 21st century,” you can get in all formats (print, ebook, audio) here; you can also find it in print wherever books are sold online. You can buy it directly from Anne Trubek’s distinguished Belt Publishing, too—we receive more of a profit that way—or you might also suggest that your local library or independent bookstore acquire a copy. Please also leave a Goodreads, Amazon, or other rating and review. Thanks to all my readers!

As for today: you know what Oscar said the only thing worse than not being talked about was. I saw some people complaining that certain writers on this platform promote each other too much. This reminded me how far behind I’ve fallen recently when it comes to reading my peers’ new and forthcoming works. I’m one book behind on Barkan—I actually did sit in the library and read the Verso nonfiction release a few months ago but saw no need to hash out political agreements and disagreements on here; our affinities are literary—not to mention that Gasda has written two more books when I wasn’t looking (and that doesn’t include plays). I’m not living up to this place’s reputation as a self-impressed coterie, am I? I’d be more assiduous about my logrolling task, but I somehow got it in my