How to See in the Dark
by Kathe Koja
It takes a little more than 30 minutes—I just learned this on a moonlight nature walk—30 minutes for the human eye to adjust to the deep ambient darkness that exists beyond city lights, and be able, or start to be able, to distinguish shapes, judge peripheral objects, recognize certain colors, find your way. Without that adjustment we blunder, fall, get turned around, we need to wait for the dark to open our eyes.
I’m Adam Szym, cartoonist of many years and of late a hobbyist screenwriter. Last September my graphic novel Little Visitor & Other Abductions, a collection of three sci-fi horror stories connected by the theme of alien abduction, was released by Oni Press.
What does translating the follow-up to an internationally beloved book involve? That was the question that translator Yuki Tejima faced when working on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s book Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window: The Sequel. We spoke with Tejima about her process and the legacy of the first volume, along with an excerpt from the book in advance of an event this weekend in New York City.
There’s a lot going on in Karen Schoemer’s new album August, which blends her wide-ranging approach to writing lyrics with musical contributions from the likes of Mike Watt and Amy Rigby. We spoke with Schoemer about the making of this album, her work with Bernadette Mayer, and how August differs from her earlier musical and literary ventures.
The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
Travis Egedy has a lot going on. You may know him best from his musical work under the name Pictureplane or the designs he’s created for the clothing company Alien Body. Pictureplane has a new album out this fall, titled Sex Distortion, and we got together over email to discuss that record, Egedy’s approach to collaboration, and how the aesthetics of horror have shaped his work.
Robert Lopez is the author, most recently, of The Best People (2025), the third installment of interconnected “People” books, which began with Good People (2016) and continued with A Better Class of People (2022). Similarly, Molly Gaudry is the author of Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir, which is the third installment of interconnected “tea house woman” books, which began with We Take Me Apart (2010) and continued with Desire: A Haunting (2018).
This took a little longer to come together than we would have liked. Still, we hope this rundown of notable November books gives readers some ideas for a post-cold snap reading session. There’s a lot of ground covered here, from deftly reported nonfiction to essential fiction in translation. Read on for a look at what’s piqued our interest this month.