Q1 & Q2 Audit

It’s a bloody listicle, you’re welcome.

It’s 38 degrees in Tirana today. Praise be that we’re over the summer solstice hump and soon to be half way through the year. Everything can start winding down now.

I (sitting in an Arctic Monkeys themed café opposite NYU’s Albania branch (who knew)) am feeling self-indulgent. That means that you (sitting somewhere dull probably) are about to enjoy my curated favourites from the first half of 2026.

Favourite Shapes

• The image of soul, mind, and body from Rudolf Koch’s Book of Signs and the way it constantly shows up in the world. I wanted to get it tattooed but thought it might look too much like the rings they draw around melanomas before burning them off.

• Hyperbolic parabaloids. I spent the spring subletting in Hackney Wick with four very interesting people. During one late night conversation an artist and a structural engineer weighed in on hyperbolic parabaloids. It’s a humdinger of a structure. The roof of the Design Museum is an HP. Sadly, the aura points of this are offset by the fact it’s a wank museum.

• Sierpinski Gaskets. I have ingested a lot of David Foster Wallace interviewage. He says the structure of Infinite Jest is based on this infinite triangular fractal. I think Sierpinski and Gasket would make good names for two adopted cats, or one child - gender neutral so they can forge their own path in life.

Favourite Fiction

• The Patrick Melrose novels. This was a world class recommendation from Tom W. Ayling, antiquarian bookseller and friend of the blog. It’s a five book series. The 4^th,, Mother’s Milk, was shortlisted for The Booker. My ranking of them would be 1, 4, 3, 5, 2 but even the worst book in the series is 5 stars. Read them in order, obviously.

• The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector.

• A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar. I bought this in Libraria Dukagjini, one of the best book stores I have ever visited. Translated fiction selections are so much better in countries that don’t have English as their primary language. I chose it because I recognised the translator, Stefan Tobler, from his masterful delivery of Lispector’s short stories. It is only 47 pages, brilliantly conceived and translated.

• Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal. I liked the film too, although Gore Vidal said he hated it.

• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I tutored a Columbia student on this for her semester presentation. It is a wonderful book, possibly better than Beloved. Speaking of, this is the Albanian cover of Beloved. What the Hell.

  

Favourite Short Reads – Fiction and Journalism:

• Calypso’ by David Sedaris

• ‘In the Waiting Room’ by David Sedaris

• ‘Good Old Neon’ by David Foster Wallace

• ‘The Hen and The Egg’ by Clarice Lispector

• ‘If YES’ by Ben Pester

• ‘Good Medicine’ by Sheila Heti

• ‘In Conversation’ – Saskia Vogel & Jen Calleja

• ‘The Same River Twice: Notes on Reading, Time, and Translation’ by Saskia Vogel

• ‘Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse’ by Vincenzo Barney

If you would like to read any of these and encounter a paywall I can email you a pdf.

Favourite Message Received From an Editor

It’s good when people have too much time on their hands and use it to be funny.

Favourite Substacks

These are the only blogs I never skip. For the same reason as above.

• James Scanlan

• Rhiannon

Favourite Design Choices In Bathrooms:

• The leather sofa in Woking crematorium’s bathroom. You know what they say: death and taxes and bowel movements.

• The mirrored cubicle doors in the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle Museum. They really struggled. You will probably be in the Museum long enough to need a piss.

• The toilet-adjacent-mirror-selfie-disco-ball room in a café in Prizren. Naturally I barged into the gents to see if they got a Glitter room too. They did not.

Favourites (Misc.)

• Coldcalling.

• Coldemailing.

• Coldlbludgeoning down the door of every creative space I wish to enter.

• Consequent emails that begin “Well Eliza, we appreciate your chutzpah…!”

• When the announcer at King’s Cross tells the station that “we are having inclement weather.”

• Diagnosing men with peri-menopause.

• Balkan lemonade.

• J T Leroi, conceptually.

• Joel Golby, literally.

• Choosing to sit under the lamppost that the seagull’s like to shit off on Hasting’s seafront to confirm my belief that I make my own luck.

• Greeting Tonsilitis like a prodigal son.

• Mania.

• Being told “you’re too creative” when I asked why I was being fired (from a publishing house).

• Men who believe I’m a dumb bint.

• Standing uncorrected.

• Going to the top of Pristina’s Mother Teresa Cathedral and pretending to be an angel in Wings of Desire.

• Ajvar on pancakes.

• American Evangelist praise songs.

• My hoodie from the Lake Ohrid tourist shop because it has a Porsche 911 GT3RS emblazoned on it that screams Old Money.

• Whisked Americanos.

• Making up wanky pseudonyms when submitting to wanky lit mags.

• Maxxing and Mogging.

• Listening to ‘Olympians’ by Fuck Buttons and thinking “what if it all works out?”

• Ego birth.

• Knowing that everything Dua Lipa prays for, God doubles and gives to me.

That’s all. See you on New Year’s Eve.