---
source: bookwyrm
date: 2026-08-24 21:09:02.00 +00
title: "On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, Sophia Hersi Smith, Jennifer Russell"
post_uri: https://bookwyrm.social/user/gravely/comment/12370487
post_id: 12370487
bookwyrm_updated: 2026-08-24T21:09:02.342363+00:00
tags:
  - bookwyrm
book_title: "On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)"
book_author: "Solvej Balle, Sophia Hersi Smith, Jennifer Russell"
book_url: https://bookwyrm.social/book/2159690
reading_status: read
---
![Cover of On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, Sophia Hersi Smith, Jennifer Russell, published 2025-11-18 by New Directions, 144 pages, part of the On the Calculation of Volume series (book 3)](./cover-12370487.jpeg)

In book three, Balle introduces us to others also trapped in the 18th of November, as scaffolding for the continued exploration of the supremacy of conviction over nature, contrasting the lived experience of seasons and relationships in book II against a literal thief of time (the mysterious bicycle rider). Now in book III, the new characters are trapped in convictions of their age: a rebellious teenager, a mindful 20-something, the narrator whose own convictions they find sentimental, and her older compatriot coming out of a mid-life crisis of career and parenting regrets, as well as literal toothless wisdom, in the form of a lecturing professor not of their cohort. The speculative closing on yet another jerk forward in plot more than doubling their cohort remind us all that this is a serial and you'll have to read the next one in the series to find out what happens.