Every week we ask an interesting figure what they're digging into. Have ideas who we should reach out to? Let it fly: info@seattlereviewofbooks.com. Want to read more? Check out the archives.

Laura Knetzger is a Seattle-based illustrator, artist, author, and comics creator. Her best known work, Bug Boys, was just published by Random House. Although she just recently gave us her answers to the questions below, we wanted to have her back in celebration of her new book. If you've read Bug Boys before, be sure to pick up the new book to see them in incredible color! You can also follow Laura on Twitter, or support her work through her Patreon.

What are you reading now?

I just started Against Creativity by Oli Mould last night. I don’t usually read nonfiction, but this one grabbed me. It’s about the co-option of the concept of creativity by capitalism as a force for economic growth rather than an expression of humanity. Recently, my cousin asked if I considered myself a “content creator” and he was trying to be funny but it gave me a little internal crisis about how I’m perceived. Anyway, I hope I finish this book.

I’m also reading The Snail on the Slope by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I’m trying to read more Strugatsky brothers since they’re like a hidden influence on modern sci-fi — kind of like how Kenji Miyazawa is such a huge influence on manga, anime, and Japanese literature but isn’t really a household name outside of Japan — and also because the video game critic Tim Rogers recommended them and I’m working up the courage to become a Tim Rogers reply guy. Their prose is kind of a slog to get through but every now and then something really spooky and exciting happens.

What did you read last?

I just finished Barkskins by Anne Proulx, which was fantastic. It’s a huge, sprawling novel that follows the descendants of two indentures servants who emigrated to Canada in the 17th century. Both families’ lives are tied to trees, one as wealthy lumber barons and the other as poor Native woodcutters who cut down the forests. There’s no traditional “story,” just the lives of the characters and the reasons they return to trees for their livelihoods generation after generation.

Then I read The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya. I highly recommend reading a collection of short stories after reading an 800 page novel because it feels so breezy and light. These stories were all fabulous, when I describe them as “breezy” I mean they all flowed and swept me along in them, not that they were insubstantial. “The Lonesome Bodybuilder” was a standout, about a dissatisfied wife who channels her sadness into getting extremely buff but her husband pays so little attention to her he doesn’t even notice her body has changed.

What are you reading next?

I just got A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine from the library. I don’t remember why I requested this one, sometimes I just put holds on stuff that’s on “best of” lists or twitter recommendation threads of whatever and then I don’t remember what seemed interesting about it in the first place. Looks good though!