Brandon Taylor
Novelist and critic whose Sweater Weather Substack publishes long, essayistic posts on contemporary fiction, craft, and reading.
Novelist and critic whose Sweater Weather Substack publishes long, essayistic posts on contemporary fiction, craft, and reading.
Brandon Taylor values this series because it challenged his narrow sense of the novel and encouraged him to incorporate politics and history.
Brandon Taylor identifies the work as having modeled the process of linking prose to moral tendency, which Brandon Taylor finds critically essential.
Brandon Taylor recommends this collection because it served as a vital constant during a difficult time in Brandon Taylor's life and fundamentally shaped his identity as a writer.
Brandon Taylor views this novel as a close rival to Persuasion regarding the dramatization of philosophical and ethical interests.
Brandon Taylor values this work as the best Jane Austen novel for its profound depiction of living through the aftermath of regret.
“In Persuasion, we have a novel about what happens when you survive the event of your life and must go on living anyway.”
Brandon Taylor values this novel for its profound insights into the cost of history and war, noting that it is the type of work he wishes he had written himself.
“It’s the sort of book I wish I had been able to write as my first novel.”
Brandon Taylor recommends this book as a brilliant, Bernhardian romp and praises it for being a unique example of literature engaging with internet-age gym culture.
“It’s about a professor (young and fit, not old and adulterous) who is stuck at a faculty meeting when all he wants to be doing is lifting weights at the gym.”
