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Out With the Old, In With the NewI've been quite busy the last few days, so there was no time for me to do an end-of-year roundup of all the books I've read, nor was there really time to let you know what I've got in store for the coming year. I'll try to do both now. Last year I launched a project called Reading 2007, for which I reviewed (well, sort of reviewed) every single book I read during the calendar year. I started out with the notion of doing serious reviews, but to be perfectly frank I don't see this blog as that serious a thing, so they eventually became more like impressionist rambles inspired by the books. I only made it through fifty-three books during the year, well below my average, but adult life certainly takes its toll on both the energy and the free time. I did find, though, that the project made me more aware of how I was choosing my reading material, and how making that information public would affect (effect? I never get that right) how others saw me. I had a good time, and I learned some things, and reader response was generally positive. I also joined The Canadian Book Challenge (follow the link to see what that's all about), which will continue probably well into the new year. For the coming year, I'm going to do much the same, except of course I'm calling my major project Reading 2008. Here are a few of the titles I've got lined up:
And of course there will be many more, both Canadian and not. There may even be some non-fiction in there, we'll have to see. I'd like to say that I'd also like to get back into making more posts about critical theory, but I've made such promises in the past, and they bore no fruit. Better to say that they may happen, or they may not. I will be making some changes to the infrastructure and such, though, and hopefully as soon as next week. I'd like to add a search function (there used to be one, but it sucked and kept breaking, so I took it down), and I'd like to add a way to page backwards through the archives in a more reasonable fashion than just selecting a category and getting every entry on a single page. I'm sure it can be done fairly easily, but I just haven't tried to wrap my head around it yet. So best wishes for the new year to all of you, and thanks for reading. Posted by August on 01.05.08 at 1:35 AM | Comments (0) #53 - Where is the Voice Coming From?, by Rudy Wiebe
Where is the Voice Coming From? was my third book for The Canadian Book Challenge, and my final book of 2007. I will begin my Reading 2008 project with Steve Zipp's novel, Yellowknife. Posted by August on 12.30.07 at 1:29 PM | Comments (0) #52 - Fat Woman, by Leon Rooke
My edition isn't the one you see pictured here. Mine is a tacky blue mass-market paperback from a company called General Publishing, part of their New Press Canadian Classics line. On the cover is a not-very-good oil painting by a woman named Jane Martin. It's the sort of painting that would have been popular in Canada in the 1970s, but has not held up, and now looks only like the sort of thing that would have been popular in Canada in the 1970s. I can't quite place the time in which the novel is supposed to be set, nor the location. The dialogue has an American south ring to it, but with the exception of some of the navy references, most of the cultural landmarks mentioned seem to be Canadian. The novel was first published in 1980, and though I've met people like those described in this novel, I still can't fathom that such deep, such profound ignorance could still exist at such a time in a nation such as this. And yet still I believe it. Fat Woman is a good book, not just because of Rooke's contagious prose style, hitting you like an old-school revivalist preacher, sucking you in and not ever letting go, but because there is a tremendous tension between an honest and sometimes harsh portrait of an uneducated rural woman and an overblown caricature of the same. There were times, reading this book, when my heart went out to Ella Mae Hopkins, for all that she had suffered growing up and at the hands of those around her who, despite their love (and here I'm thinking mostly of her dead mother and her husband) can't help but be cruel. Ella Mae suffers from wild mood swings, anxiety, and an over-eating disorder of epic proportions. It's easy to laugh at her, and sometimes I did. But I also pitied her, and despite her ignorance and her own portion of hate and bigotry, I felt myself sympathizing with her, and hoping that things would work out alright in the end. Rooke never really tells us for sure; it all comes down to whether or not we trust Edward Hopkins. Fat Woman was my second contribution to The Canadian Book Challenge. Next: Where is the Voice Coming From?, by Rudy Wiebe. This will most likely be my last book of the year, depending on how much free time I find myself over the holiday season, so stay tuned for an end-of-year wrap-up and a preview of what books to expect in the new year. Happy holidays, everyone. Posted by August on 12.22.07 at 3:46 AM | Comments (0) #51 - The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields
I fell in love with this book. The book's two protagonists, Fay McLeod and Tom Avery are damaged but real, well-drawn people with full lives, lives that feel like they could be biography rather than fiction. The main action of the book, and the main pleasure, is to watch these two characters move in a spiral around one another, sharing friends and places, existing on the periphery of each other's lives but never quite meeting, and never quite knowing why they fail to connect with the various lovers or almost-lovers that come and go. Destiny seems to have a hand in their eventual (inevitable) romance, but there is so much else going on, such a richness of detail to how their lives are presented, that it never rings false, never feels cheap or out-dated. The Republic of Love is an exquisite, satisfying book about real people finding real love, and living, more or less, happily ever after, and Shields somehow manages it without being sentimental or saccharine. That's not to say that the book is perfect, of course. There are little things about it, not really relevant to the plot, where it's plain that Shields had no real experience. Things like fast food. Tom Avery eats on a pretty regular basis at his local A&W (a pretty appropriate choice, given the Winnipeg setting), but it's obvious that Shields hadn't set foot in one in more than a decade, if she ever had. The menu items he orders, which would have been popular when she was young had been discontinued for decades at the time the novel is set, she populates the restaurant with waitresses as well as cashiers and cooks, and the patrons tip regularly. None of this is accurate for any fast food franchise, never mind A&W specifically. It's a small mistake, but one that could have been avoided by eating a single meal for research, though I think I only found it jarring because I worked there for several years as a teenager. There were a few other similar things, mostly characters using slang terms and customs that belong to the generation before them, but they are of small consequence. The Republic of Love was my first book as part of The Canadian Book Challenge. Next up: Fat Woman, by Leon Rooke. Posted by August on 12.19.07 at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) #50 - Invitation to a Beheading, by Vladimir Nabokov
Invitation to a Beheading follows Cincinnatus C. as he spends three weeks on death row at a dream-like prison in an equally dream-like country. His crime is "gnostical turpitude," a concept that is never fully explained, but based on the little information made available in the novel, has something to do with his being "opaque" at the level of his soul. What this actually means, I have no idea, but it frightens the other characters in the novel, who all live their lives based on a kind of dream logic that Cincinnatus can't seem to participate in with any success. It's actually that inability to mesh entirely with the dreamworld that saves him from his decided fate. Much of the action of the novel, if you can really call it that (Nabokov's novels aren't really about "action" in the sense of events of consequence moving the plot forward), involves Cincinnatus, his jailer Rodion, fellow prisoner M'sieur Pierre (who also happens to be the executioner) and a few others whiling away the hours until the beheading, the exact date and time of which is kept hidden virtually until the moment itself. What Nabokov gives us is as much Alice in Wonderland as it is Kafka or Dostoyevsky, the dream-logic of the novel cheerfully thwarting any attempt at clarity or humanity, keeping Cincinnatus as off-balance as possible, he being the only conspicuously sane person in the novel. I say this is Nabokov's weakest novel, or at least the weakest that I have read, because I think that he is at his best when his work is rooted firmly in the logic of things, and Invitation to a Beheading defies that, although the prose (even through Dmitri's translation) is brilliant, glittering stuff. This is a novel of strange juxtapositions and half-finished sentences, always skirting sense and clarity, but never quite hitting the mark. This is not a deficiency; it's obviously the whole point. I just don't think it's how Nabokov functions best. Either way, it was an incredibly satisfying read, as his books always are. Next: The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields. Posted by August on 12.16.07 at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) #49 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Ian Fleming
On Her Majesty's Secret Service was a slightly atypical Bond adventure, in the sense that he was genuinely undercover, right down to the fake name, and so there are a number of different challenges in this book; it's interesting to note that Bond may shy away from false identities simply because it is too difficult to play out convincingly, even with major preparation. The other atypical aspect of the book was of course the fact that Bond finally gets married (to a young woman named Tracy, daughter of the Capu of the Union Corse). Though much of the first third of the book is dedicated to Bond meeting and developing feelings for Tracy, the marriage still seems forced and rather rushed. I was not entirely convinced by it, and it's no surprise that she was killed in the last pages. Alright, no more Bond for a while. Next up: Invitation to a Beheading, by Vladimir Nabokov. Posted by August on 12.10.07 at 2:15 PM | Comments (0) #48 - The Spy Who Loved Me, by Ian Fleming
The only real problem that I can see is that Fleming didn't seem to know a damn thing about how to write women (he may not have known a damned thing about women). The book is written from Viv's perspective, in her own voice, but she is basically just a collection early and mid-Twentieth Century stereotypes, and I think she would be sure to offend any modern female reader (and possibly any female reader at the time; certainly any who read the work of people like Iris Murdoch). Next: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Ian Fleming (because there wasn't enough Bond in the previous Bond adventure to satisfy me). Posted by August on 12.07.07 at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) #47 - The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd
Okay, so he makes some rookie mistakes. The pacing The Cheese Monkeys is way too fast, and the ending is a bit of a cop-out (I'm given to understand that this is partly based on his own experiences, but still, give us some closure). The only reason the book clocks in at 274 pages is because Kidd has given the text some insanely large margins (I must admit, the book is pretty cool to look at, fits comfortably in the hand, etc.; if nothing else, Kidd is an amazing designer). I would imagine that in word count it's barely more than a novella. But it's funny. Let's make that clear. The damned book is hilarious. I laughed out loud more times than I can count. The characters never quite become simple caricatures (at least the main ones don't), but it's a close call, because we also never really have enough time to get to know them properly, and in some ways the second half of the book seems like an excuse to get Kidd's ideas about graphic design down on paper. Not that they are bad ideas; they just aren't meaty enough to support an entire novel (the humour is, though; it's great). I hope Kidd tries another novel, but something longer. I'd certainly read it. And now: The Spy Who Loved Me, by Ian Fleming. Posted by August on 12.05.07 at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) #46 - Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins
What we have in Jitterbug Perfume is an unfinished quest, three or four rather strange romances (all, in some way resolved with a certain level of satisfaction) and an unusual mediation on the relation between biochemistry and longevity. Oh yes, and beets. I feel better about eating beets, having read this. I can't really tell you that I was expecting this novel to be quite so grand (although it felt quite small), but after having seen the film adaptation of Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get The Blues it would have been wrong of me to go in with any real expectations at all. They would have been thoroughly confounded. As is often the case for me with film and literature from the 1980s, I really only liked one or two characters (I don't know why it is, but I find that the 1980s had an incredible knack for justifying extreme selfishness, and believing that such a thing was somehow likable). Of course those two characters were Alobar, the more or less immortal man, and Priscilla the genius waitress, who showed more patience than I would have (or than a saint most likely would have) at the sexual-assault-level advances of her lesbian best friend. There was a lot going on in this book, and I'd hate to spoil it for you, so I'll just say that I'm going to read some of his other books, probably next year, just to see if they live up to this one. Oh yes, also: eat your beets. Next: The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd. Posted by August on 12.02.07 at 1:19 PM | Comments (0) #45 - The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
The Japanese of Dick's fictional late 1960s turn out to be very much like the Japanese of today (or rather, like our Western view of the Japanese people), and offer a reasonable, although not entirely likable to my eyes, way of living and dealing with the world. I found myself sympathizing with many of the conquering/colonizing Japanese characters far more than with most of the ignorant, bigoted American characters. At first I thought that Dick had painted a portrait of an America turned bitter and racist in defeat, and heavily influenced by many of the worst characteristics of the conquering fascists, but then I realized that if I were to look at the popular media from the time that Dick was actually pointing out that, even in victory he could see a great flaw in the popular American consciousness. Heavy stuff. I would not be surprised to learn that this book influenced William Gibson, actually. It felt very close to some of his work. There's too much to say about this book, really. It's one of the best and most thought-provoking books I've read all year, and I was genuinely saddened that it ended. The title of the book refers to an author within the novel who has written an "alternate history" of the Second World War, one in which the Allies won (and two his credit, Dick changes some of the details so that it remains genuine fiction). The book has an interesting place in the novel, something that I think might deserve serious critical attention (if it hasn't already, I haven't looked), and I don't feel like I've thought about it long enough to give any real report on that place. My head nearly exploded when the source of book, or the author's ideas for the book, were revealed. I can only finish by saying, read this book. Next: Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins. Posted by August on 11.30.07 at 2:36 PM | Comments (0) #44 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
Next: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick. Posted by August on 11.30.07 at 2:27 PM | Comments (0) #43 - Underworld, by Don DeLillo
I'm going to have to agree with Wood here, on some pretty important points. First of all, this novel is incredibly overrated. The backward-looking structure doesn't seem to help, as it very much appears that DeLillo didn't quite think it through. While, like life, the focus of people's lives changes from time period to time period, DeLillo skips the transitions, so instead of experiencing the sense of Nick Shay trying to understand himself, we get a half-assed, barely there character who is wildly inconsistent in his behaviour and his mental state with very little explanation as to why. I'm left adrift wondering whether Nick is a single character traced through time, or an amalgam of impressions that the author simply stuck a label on for the sake of convention. I suppose if DeLillo had been more explicit, and hadn't made many of his characters so similar (in the murky past), this would have been easier to work through. There were times when I would read a section, twenty pages or so, and not know which characters were involved, because no names would be mentioned and the style, setting, and actions could have referred to five or six different people, given what was already known. This was a hugely frustrating experience. The first hundred or so pages were solid, well-written, entertaining, and though I didn't always know what was going on or why, I felt like there was a purpose behind it. The last hundred or so pages were much the same. It was the six hundred and fifty pages in the middle that ruined it for me. I actually don't blame Wood for focusing so much on the paranoia. With so much vague nonsense, half-formed characters (Hoover and Sinatra were better drawn and made for more interesting reading than either Nick Shay or Klara Sax, as was sister Edgar and any number of the peripheral characters) and directionless meandering through the ethics and philosphy of trash, the paranoia is the one consistent, oppressive force in the novel. It connects the characters far more than proximity, the passage of time, or that damned baseball, which somehow seems to always come just shy of being a meaningful symbol. Paranoia is something to hold on to, to make one feel like the two months spent reading this book weren't entirely wasted. I need to say some things about Klara Sax. She is supposed to be an artist. Articles about the book, characters in the book, even the back of the book itself, have all made much of the fact that she is an artist. Except that she isn't. It doesn't help that DeLillo can't write worth a damn about art (baseball, yes, but art? A.S. Byatt he ain't), coming across like a half-literate tourist trying to explain the poster selection in the gift shop at the Louvre, but Klara Sax is just flat out not an artist. People around her make art, and in one memorable seen she is being interviewed about her art, while others around her that she pays are actually going about the business of making it. But we never really see her making art, or doing much thinking about it at all. At least, not thinking about her own work. She is not dedicated, has no drive or obsession or commitment. I felt more like DeLillo wanted to feature an unmarried woman of a certain class, but didn't want to have to bother about giving her a job. I suppose that's all. I started writing this, several weeks ago actually, with many, many things to say, but no real organizing principle to my thoughts. Having written, re-written, thrown away, and re-thought it all over the last several weeks, my thoughts have become less coherent and my desire to rant and rave about having wasted so much of my time on this colossal mess of a novel has become almost too strong to resist. So I'm just going to stop. Next: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling. Posted by August on 11.30.07 at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) #42 - Childhood, by André Alexis
In Childhood, Alexis presents us with circumstances and characters that are at a level of detachment I find difficult to describe, but that also have an emotional impact, a deeply touching quality, that makes any summary seem not only incomplete, but also somehow unclean, or insulting. Just read the book. You won't regret it. Next: Don DeLillo's Underworld, for which I may actually do some additional research, because of all the fuss that's been buzzing about the blogosphere (guh) lately. Posted by August on 09.26.07 at 2:47 AM | Comments (0) #41 - Shelf Monkey, by Cory Redekop
I enjoyed this book despite myself. Page one was a reasonably convincing fake newspaper article, but page two almost lost me, with the immediate launch into what I can't help but think of as the Canadian Indie Style. Some of you may not be familiar with it (although if you've read Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, or really anything else by Jim Munroe, you've definitely encountered it), so I'll give you a brief rundown of what's involved. It's self-consciously casual to the point of seeming forced. The authors tend to have large vocabularies, but rarely use them effectively. Technique is virtually irrelevant, with plot and overt character development being nearly the only concerns. The narrators are self-deprecating, misunderstood, inwardly aggressive but outwardly meek. The women who serve as love interests for these characters are uniformly aggressive, beautiful, artistic, sporting an unusual name, and often (though not always) bisexual. Quirky isn't the word. In many cases, though the books are entertaining and original, that's all they are, and it's easy to see why the authors stayed "indie". I like independent presses, and they fill a need that, frankly, I wouldn't trust the larger house to fill. But. The Canadian Indie Style is genuinely grating after ten pages or so, and a book has to have a lot going for it otherwise to not outright piss me off before the end. Most books in this vein seem to feel like they've gotten almost there, but haven't quite made it. Shelf Monkey is written in almost quintessential Canadian Indie Style, but thankfully has a lot of things going for it, and I was able to put my hatred of The Style aside and just enjoy the story. The novel is presented a series of documents (mostly emails written by protagonist Thomas Friesen, although there are newspaper articles and transcripts included) as he tries to explain, to Eric McCormack of all people, why he is on the run from the law. It's a clever technique, and it works for the most part. It does fall apart a bit when you realize that nearly ever one of the documents, no matter who the ostensible author, is written in more or less the same tone. Thomas is a failed lawyer, and bibliophile much like myself (although we have very different tastes), and he finds work in a big box book store in Winnipeg. There he meets and eventually befriends Warren, Aubrey and (the aggressive, beautiful, unusually named) Danae. Despite being hopped up on pain pills left over from what seems to be a failed suicide attempt, he is extremely lucid, with the exception of an early scene in which he encounters an over-sized mock-up of Munroe Purvis, a talkshow host with a book club more popular than Oprah's. Purvis publishes all his recommended books himself, and they are apparently the worst book ever published, with no real editorial integrity behind publishing them. The masses buy what they are told to buy. I think what saves Shelf Monkey from being just another CIS book is how intense the satire actually is. The title comes from the group that Aubrey, Warren and Danae form, eventually including Friesen and others, to work out their frustrations about selling bad books to uneducated and uncaring readers day in and day out. They are joined by librarians and other sort of professional bibliophiles once a week on the edge of Winnipeg, where they gather in a vacant subdivision and burn books they hate. All the participants have secret names (Don Quixote, Yossarian, Offred, even a Gandalf), and present their candidates for burning in a ritualized way. As you can imagine, it devolves into cult territory pretty quickly. The problem here, and it's the only problem really, is that the setup is so long, and relatively speaking the book is so short, that Aubrey, Warren and Danae begin frothing at the mouth before we get a chance to really understand their characters, and without any real warning signs. If satire wasn't moving the plot forward so forcefully, the leap from burning books to blow off steam and a calculated act of violence (you'll have to read the book to find out what) would simply be too great to bear. Shelf Monkey, ultimately, is a fun book with some problems that are (hopefully) only indicative of the fact that it's Redekop's first time at bat. If he gives it another go I'll most likely pick that one up as well, and good luck to him in the future. Oh yeah, and like all of us, he's got a blog. Next: Childhood, by André Alexis. Posted by August on 09.21.07 at 12:01 PM | Comments (1) #40 - The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
Chandler's prose is energetic, casual, and surprisingly fun. I was worried that I would have to remind myself at times that Philip Marlowe is the source of the hard-nosed detective cliché, and not just another in a long, unimpressive string. Not once did such a thought actually cross my mind. The slang was sometimes hard to follow, but Marlowe was almost refreshing, defying the stereotype in a surprising number of ways. He had a tremendous and overflowing sense of humour, for one thing. I was surprised by the treatment of sexuality and pornography in the book. I expected more repression, the references to be less direct. Instead Chandler was frank, open, and though not exactly non-judgemental, his characters seemed almost less conservative than many an average person would be today. I can't wait to read more. Next: Shelf Monkey, by Cory Redekop Posted by August on 09.21.07 at 2:38 AM | Comments (0) #39 - Who Do You Think You Are?, by Alice Munro
Next: The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. Posted by August on 09.21.07 at 1:59 AM | Comments (0) The Story So Far...It's eight and a half months into my Reading 2007 project, so I think that a status report is long overdue. The idea, for those of you who haven't been following the blog over the last year, is that I write a mini-review of every book I read this year. I've managed to keep that up for all thirty-eight books that I've read so far, sort of. Most of the "mini-reviews" have wound up being rather disorganized and somewhat disconnected from any particular critical stance. And they also tend to be written within a half hour of my having finished reading the book, and rarely do they take more than a half hour to write. It was never my intention to be so slapdash (I swear I'm capable of more considered judgements), but I think I actually prefer it this way. I never intended this site to be a place for my deepest or most profound thoughts, and I certainly don't want it to turn into a forum for academic writing. For one thing, I'm notoriously slow when it comes to formal writing, and for another I'd rather that sort of work show up in other venues, preferably venues in which I'm being paid. I'd prefer this blog be more casual, and it has been. So for now on I think I'll scrap the notion of "mini-reviews". My posts about specific books will not change any, I think it would just be better to think of them as impressions or gut reactions. I'm also quite behind on my reading. I used to read between seventy and ninety books a year, and right now I'm not even on track to hit sixty. I suppose this isn't a bad thing per se, but I certainly feel like I'm cheating myself somehow. It feels like the longer I'm out of touch with critical/academic world, the harder it is for me to focus for long periods of time on a given text, the more things like excitement and adventure matter, often at the expense of intellectual pleasure. They are not mutually exclusive pleasures, of course, but they are quite different kinds of pleasure. I'll leave it to the individual reader to determine which is the greater, if they believe such an assessment can be made honestly. Also, and I'm going to give this subject its own paragraph because it bothers me so much, I find that I'm very conscious about what authors I'm reading. Far more so than before I made my reading choices so self-consciously public. Am I reading enough women authors? Enough authors of colour? Enough Canadians? I've never seriously considered these issues before, in fact I dismissed them as completely irrelevant. The colour of an author's skin, their birthplace, or whatever interesting bits they may have between their legs always struck me as completely irrelevant to whether or not I would read their books. But the blogosphere (I can't tell you the self-loathing that accompanied my typing that word) seems to think such things are important. Many of the blogs I read (Bookslut, Bookninja, Edward Champion's The Return of the Reluctant, The Elegant Variation) seem to think these are issues of paramount of importance. They look at the bylines in magazines and breakdown gender and ethnic percentages. They look at the juries and winners of major prizes, pay attention to who gets more column inches. (Never mind that they don't look at any considerations beyond the blunt notion of prejudice for any numerical inequality.) I honestly don't give a shit, so long as I get to read good books. But. I feel like, if I read more books by men than women, more books by caucasians than by people of colour, more books by Brits and Americans than by Canadians, I may somehow be judged by readers of this blog to be a misogynist, a racist, or in some way a traitor to my culture. I could point out that my two favourite novels are both written by women, and that one of them is Canadian. I could point out that of my four favourite living Canadian writers, two are black, and one is a Jewish woman. The problem is that making these statements would genuinely make me feel like I was trying to hide something, or that somehow reading more books by men than women in 2007 is a misogynist act. It isn't, and I don't have to defend my reading choices. I think, ultimately, that choosing my reading material based on considerations other than "do I think I will enjoy this book?" to be demeaning to myself and to the authors I read. If I pick up a book by Zadie Smith because she is a woman of colour rather than because I think I will enjoy her book, I feel like I am implying that her skin colour and fiddly bits are more important than her skill with words (I chose Smith as an example because she has been written about as a significant female author and as a significant author of colour, but I read On Beauty last year, and loved it, because it sounded like a damned fine book, and for no other reason). That is an implication I am unwilling to make. I know that if someone picked my work because I have white skin and a penis, and not because they think my work will be enjoyable, I would be insulted. Now, my experiences as a white male in our society may influence my subject matter or even what sort of writing styles I may experiment with (I may be less likely to indulge in certain kinds of gender ambiguities, or certain kinds of rhythm), but those things have no bearing on whether or not my work is any good. At any rate, I don't like thinking of these issues when I choose my reading material, and it pisses me off that I am feeling this kind of peer pressure, even if it is indirect. No matter what happens, I think that when 2007 is over, I'm going to start again with a similar project for 2008. Lastly, I'll just give you a taste of some of the books I have on deck.
Thanks for reading! Posted by August on 09.15.07 at 1:30 AM | Comments (0) #38 - The Bell, by Iris Murdoch
The novel both opens and closes with an omniscient narrator looking at a collection of characters as if from a great distance, the tone alternating between detachment and a kind of good-natured condescension. The characters are neurotic, dysfunctional, only sometimes likable, and yet profoundly, recognizably human. In some ways this seems a little too pat, an easy and uncomplicated way of setting up the board and then taking it down again, like a game of checkers, or maybe Scrabble. The bulk of the novel is of course more specific, dealing with the daily events and remarkably troubled spiritual lives of a group of people living in a lay religious community called Imber Court, attached almost like a parasite to an abbey of cloistered Anglican Benedictine nuns. The Bell for a time seems like it will follow the spiritual rebirth and emotional development of Mrs. Dora Greenfield, a skittish, not particularly intelligent woman who has married an appalling man named Paul, though she is in her own way quite appalling (James Tayper-Pierce, one of the Imber residents, says she is the sort of woman "who is sometimes called a bitch"), as she is selfish, thoughtless and almost without the power of introspection. At the opening of the novel she is returning to her husband Paul (violent, cruel, and even more selfish than she) after having walked out on their marriage for a time. Paul is a scholar, working on old documents that have been acquired by the abbey. Imber and many of the other characters are introduced by the narrator as though through her eyes. She does eventually begin to develop into a functional, independent, adult human being, but she is really only on the cusp of that achievement when the novel switches, at the end, back to the distant eye-in-the-sky style of narration. By far the most interesting character in the book is Michael, the de facto leader of Imber court, owner of the grounds, one-time aspirant to the clergy and closeted (well, obviously closeted, the book was first published in 1958) homosexual. The most interesting parts of the book happen when Michael tries to reconcile his deep spirituality with his sexuality, two things which he sees as wholly incompatible, yet stemming from the same source. Interestingly, he thinks of his sexuality wholly in terms of love, never in terms of lust, although when the narrator recounts the events of his life, it's clear that lust was also present. Dora, the less emotionally developed person, is perfectly capably of acknowledging and acting through lust, but Michael, the spiritual man who is endlessly examining his own actions and intentions, will only acknowledge love as a motivating factor where his sexuality is concerned. In some ways this is the most alien part of the book. We live, today, in a society that (well, for the most part; there's still progress to be made) accepts homosexuals as people who are simply different from heterosexuals, neither better nor worse. The vast majority of society (or, at least it seems that way from my experience) has moved past the ideas that gay people are criminal, or in some way suffering from an illness, but to Michael and Toby (the young man with whom Michael falls, conditionally, in love with at Imber), these are real and vital concerns to deal with. One of Michael's major struggles is to be at peace with his sexual identity, not only because he is different and the world unkind to those who are different, as the case would be today, but also because he must struggle with the idea, placed in him by both his society and his religion, that what he is must somehow also be wrong, dangerous, or evil, even. Michael's turmoil is at turns fascinating and heartbreaking. Even when he reaches a place of equilibrium he must constantly be on guard of threats to it from the outside, as he is not free to be who his is. There are other characters, such as Nick and Catherine, ghosts from Michael's past, who are necessarily present but never seem wholly there, and are much less significant than the narrator suggests they could be (this is perhaps a major difference between Byatt and Murdoch; Murdoch has them play their role but otherwise ignores them, while Byatt would have given them greater attention). Likewise the bells themselves, the pieces of history that seem to bind everyone together at Imber, and direct much of the action of the book. They are excuses to set the pieces in motion, and though deeper tales are hinted at, they are not explored. Byatt would certainly have explored them. This is not a deficiency in Murdoch, merely a difference. The Bell is a tight novel, and indeed "wise, witty and compulsive" as the blurb on the cover suggests. (Oh yes, mine is an older copy than the one pictured here, so the cover is different.) Next, Who Do You Think You Are?, a book of linked short stories by Alice Munroe. Posted by August on 09.12.07 at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) #37 - Iron Council, by China Miéville
The war between Tesh and New Crobuzon and the working class uprising within the city were far more interesting than the story of the train, and it was in that subplot (and was a subplot, even though the blurb on the back of the book and the early chapters of the novel suggest that they are the main plot elements) that Miéville's most polished writing can be seen. There's so much going on there that it's difficult to talk about without having to rehash half the book, but that the war itself was treated more as a problem that could be (and was) solved in five pages of special effects and a chase scene was more than a little disappointing, particularly in light of how emotionally complex the issues leading up to those five page were. Miéville's prose felt considerably less competent in this novel as well. He's not a bad writer, not at all. He has a talent for finding interesting images and imbuing them with an emotional significance that seems inherent rather than contextual. But Iron Council simply felt sloppy. Events that would later be referenced with specificity were described with a dream-like vagueness that often made it difficult to figure out just what the hell was going on. It felt like he was in such a hurry to move the plot forward that he ignored the mechanics of his prose. In addition, he once again made use of the pseudo-stream-of-consciousness interludes that are a kind of trademark of his novels. They are always, always, always the worst parts of his work, and they are a chore to read through, because he's frankly not very good at the technique. I do hope he drops it for the next book. So in the final analysis, Iron Council wasn't terrible, by any means, but the book could definitely have done with another draft. Back to the world of literary fiction with Iris Murdoch's The Bell. Posted by August on 08.26.07 at 2:21 PM | Comments (0) #36 - The Scar, by China Miéville
I think another reason I enjoyed this book so much (and read it so quickly) was the nautical setting. Folks who know me will know that I am a great fan of the late Patrick O'Brian's work, and anything well-written about adventure on the high seas is almost guaranteed to strike my fancy. Miéville is obviously not a sailor, and there were many times where I'm sure he was pushing the physics of his fictional world past the breaking point, but still he handled the naval bits with tremendous and convincing gusto, if not necessarily with skill. I know that's not a lot to say about a novel this large and complicated, but it's late, I'm tired, and you should really just go out and see for yourself. I'll try to do better with the next one. And since I still crave excitement, adventure, and really wild things, I'm going to read the last China Miéville book in my possession (and the only of his adult works I have yet to read), Iron Council Posted by August on 08.16.07 at 1:31 AM | Comments (0) #35 - Thunderball, by Ian Fleming
The racism and bigotry that marred some of the other books is mostly absent from this book (mostly because the Nassau locals aren't really given any substantial parts in the book), and Domino Vitali is pretty close to being a real human being. This novel also marks the first appearance of SPECTRE, the group of freelance terrorists that serves as Bond's major opposition in the films. Much of what made it into the films (the use of numbers instead of names, the extent of their plots, and so on) makes much more sense here, and actually seems practical rather than ludicrous. I was very nearly tempted to immediately move on to The Spy Who Loved Me, but I've got a lot more demanding books to read, and only so many Bond novels left. Rationing is important. Up next: The Scar, by China Miéville. Posted by August on 08.14.07 at 1:27 AM | Comments (0) #34 - Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
There are serious flaws in this book, at least from my point of view as a reader for pleasure. Both action and genuine introspection were rare, and though centuries passed, the pace of the novel was far slower than it should have been. Woolf could certainly turn a phrase, but I found myself bored by her prose rather than energized by it. The only sequence of the novel where I felt like Orlando was anything other than a disinterested, cardboard cut-out observer of his/her life was at the very end, when Woolf's trademark brand of stream of consciousness took over from the biographical parody. Had I approached this book as an academic (something I don't do often anymore) I would have found it full of interesting things. There's an excellent exploration of the progression of English literature and criticism, no end of biographematic possibilities, all of which are overshadowed by the most fertile ground for the discussion of gender identity I've ever seen. So while I didn't hate it, I didn't love it either. I approached the book as a casual reader and was bored by it (why else would a mere 314 pages have taken me weeks to read), but had I been more willing to work as a reader I probably would have found it remarkable. Potential readers should take that as a caveat (but everybody should go out and see Sally Potter's wonderful film adaptation). Next: Ian Fleming's Thunderball. Posted by August on 08.11.07 at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) #33 - The Wild Palms, by William Faulkner
"The Old Man" is something different. "The Old Man" follows a convict from a Parcham, Mississippi work farm as he is dispatched during a flood to rescue two citizens trapped on their roofs. He and the pregnant woman he does manage to rescue are swept away down one of the Mississippi's many tributaries (the title of this storyline refers, of course, to the mighty river itself) and are effectively lost for about seven weeks. Neither the convict, nor the woman, nor, in fact, the baby she eventually gives birth to on the skiff, are ever named. The distance works for Faulkner, as it usually does. One of the strengths of his prose is how it is sober, concrete, and often clinical in tone; the actual content of his books, his stories and characters, are intensely human and quite complex emotionally. For most writers that kind of distance would rob them of the chance to fully explore their characters, but Faulkner seems to see it as an opportunity. Faulkner is in full form in this portion of the novel, with the convict being at once a blank space and a lightning rod for all the feelings the rest of the book evokes. The only fault, if it can be called such a thing, is that the entire storyline seems to be a set up (well, not really, that's just sort of what happens in the last sentence or two) for an elaborate joke about the general infidelity of the female sex. In short: not his best book, but definitely worth checking out. Next, Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. Posted by August on 07.03.07 at 3:42 AM | Comments (0) #32 - Looking For Jake, by China Miéville
Now, because it has been too long since I've read any of his work, and because I promised some Literature with a capital "L", and because I'm spending the weekend with a friend at a comic book convention and I like deliberate incongruities, I will now be reading The Wild Palms, by the inimitable William Faulkner. Posted by August on 06.09.07 at 4:10 AM | Comments (0) #31 - Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett
Next, as I couldn't decide what I wanted to read, I randomly pulled a book from one of my shelves and came up Looking For Jake, by China Miéville. I promise I'll move into some capital-L Literature next, just so that this doesn't turn entirely into a genre-fiction year (I had actually originally intended it to be the year in which I read all those classics that have been sitting unopened on my shelves, but I suppose that says something about the strength of good intentions). Posted by August on 06.06.07 at 2:29 AM | Comments (0) #30 - For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming
My favourite stories were actually two that had nothing to do with espionage. There was "Quantum of Solace" which was actually a meditation by the Governor of the Bahamas on romantic relationships between men and women and human interaction, with Bond listening and occasionally commenting. The reader winds up seeing a much more human side of Bond than in any other of the works, and it becomes clear just how vulnerable he actually is to his emotions, and how that drives him to push human connections, particularly with women, away. Speaking of women, I was almost willing to be pleased with Fleming's treatment of female characters in this book, but not quite. I don't know if he was writing to his audience's expectations, or if he actually believed that women at heart were weak and submissive (neither would surprise me, and I don't know which would disappoint me more). All the female characters, with the exception of the battered wife Liz Krest in the final story, "The Hildebrand Rarity" (the other non-espionage piece in the book; it focuses instead on compassion and empathy as Bond helps a woman cover up the murder of her rich, abusive husband), and Rhoda, the young woman in the Governor's tale (she is cruelty itself) start out strong and independent, but pass through stages where they are little more than sexual props or quivering figures of fear and servility. I suppose it's part of the Bond mythos, but it's both dull and irritating after a while (not to mention it makes the female characters less attractive as characters; who can bring themselves to care deeply for someone who cannot stand on their own two feet most of the time). Next, Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett. Posted by August on 06.06.07 at 12:42 AM | Comments (0) #29 - Despair, by André Alexis
Coming a close second as far as favourites go is "The Road to Santiago de Compostela", which is about a group of Canadians from Ottawa traveling together on a train through Europe and exchanging stories to while away the time, having not yet adjusted to the time change. The piece reminds me of Chaucer (of course) but also of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. The tone is very similar, both supple and straightforward, and the stories told by the travelers have many of the same fantastic elements. I did have trouble following some of the French bits, as Ontario's system of educating Anglophones in that language is rather lax, but I really only mention it as a caveat for those who are turned off by such things. The other stories in Despair (the full title being: Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa) aren't quite up to the quality of those last two, but they are still quite good, and I look forward to reading Childhood, his first novel and only other book as far as I know. It sits on my shelf, waiting. This evening I began reading For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming (and my eighth Bond novel). Posted by August on 06.05.07 at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) #28 - Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
Next (and I'm finally caught up, so this actually is the book I'm currently reading) is Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, by the incomparable André Alexis. Posted by August on 06.02.07 at 2:33 AM | Comments (0) #27 - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick
I won't pretend to have entirely understood this book, although on the surface it was fairly straightforward. (I think someday I'm going to make a list of words I over-use. "Although" will probably be at the top of the list.) Jason Taverner is the host of a prime-time variety show and a "six", a rare genetically engineered human. On Tuesday evening he leaves the studio with everything, money, fame, power and a beautiful, talented woman in his bed. When he wakes up the next morning he has none of it. It is not that he has been robbed or slandered or imprisoned. He has simply never existed. The totalitarian state that the US has become has no record of his birth, his television program does not air, his albums were never recorded, and his friends and lovers and incapable of recognizing his face. What follows is a paranoid romp through a strangely familiar world of drugs, a world-wide network for transferring information, incest, morality, and the nature of success (is it genetic? circumstantial?). This sounds rather vague, but seriously, you try writing about a Philip K. Dick novel without sounding like the dust jacket; it's impossible, you simply won't make any sense. It's been a long time since I've read anything by Dick (the last was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and before that I think it was V.A.L.I.S., nearly ten years ago), but I won't be leaving things so long in the future. I've already got The Man in the High Castle in the queue. Next is the last book before I'm fully caught up, Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Posted by August on 06.02.07 at 2:05 AM | Comments (0) #26 - Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
As it's been a few weeks since I've read it (as opposed to the normal half-hour gap between reading the book and writing these things) I've forgotten the names of most of the characters, but in all honesty I didn't like any of them. This is a good thing, though. First, I actually think of them as characters rather than as simple cardboard cut-outs or plot devices; the fact that I don't like them is irrelevant, really. It doesn't keep me from enjoying the story. Isaac, the more or less protagonist somehow manages to be supremely selfish personally and passionately interested in social justice. This tends to keep him from being the generally featureless hero figure that folks complain about in lesser fantasy work but it does, as I mentioned earlier, keep him from being likable. Perhaps I would think differently if I were English rather than Canadian. I've often noticed that there is a kind of directness to protagonists in English fiction (especially in young characters) that would come across as rude or even openly hostile in Canadian society. An unrecognized cultural gap, perhaps? The book is chock full of characters, but most of them, while individualized, aren't quite developed, and it's easier to think of them as functions rather than people (Lin the damsel in distress, Yagharek the sympathetic alien, Motley the criminal mastermind, and so on). Should I say some things about the world of New Crobuzon? Perhaps I should. The city itself is wonderfully realized, right down to street corners and a rich, ramshackle development that reminds me of any number of cities (London, Cairo, and my adopted home of Toronto all spring to mind), but little seems to be done to place the city in any kind of context, either historical or governmental. Is New Crobuzon part of a nation? Where is the original Crobuzon? What is its relationship to neighbouring communities? One or two of these things are brushed on, but the general sense seems to be that, at this stage at least, Miéville didn't think too deeply on these subjects, and New Crobuzon is an island emerging from the mist. I don't want to leave the impression that I disliked the novel, so let me just say that I have acquired all of Miéville's other works, except the most recent Un-lun-dun (I think that's what it's called), and have every intention of reading them in the near future, so impressed was I by both King Rat and Perdido Street Station. Next: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick. Posted by August on 06.02.07 at 1:54 AM | Comments (0) #25 - King Rat, by China Miéville
King Rat is pretty obviously a first novel, but here I think it's a strength; while the style is a bit rough, Miéville doesn't seem to be encumbered by any preconceived notions of what can and cannot be done in this type of fiction. King Rat draws heavily from folklore (the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Anansi the spider, for example) but it never quite gives up its unique point of view or surrenders to the mundane. I will say that the deeper I thought about the book the more simple questions I had (where did these supernatural characters come from? What sort of society do they have, how come they look human, etc? How do they live their day to day lives?), but those are mostly questions of a reader used to realist fiction, and they are out of place in a sympathetic reading of this book. (That I cannot refrain from asking such questions is probably the biggest reason that I am not a dedicated reader of fantasy and science fiction, and also why I have never written a successful piece in either genre.) It was rollicking good fun. I was particularly pleased with how Miéville handled the drum and bass elements of the novel. Very few writers can do anything worthwhile with music, but he was quite successful at capturing the feel of the music and the drum and bass subculture. Next, Perdido Street Station, also by China Miéville. Posted by August on 05.24.07 at 5:32 PM | Comments (0) #24 - Slow Learner, by Thomas Pynchon
The biggest issue with most of these stories is that that young apprentice Pynchon had absolutely no ear for prose. Their style is clumsy, jumping between baroque infodump and stark minimalism to no apparent purpose. Important details are often vague (and the prose during the only treatment of sex in these stories isn't just purple, it's Imperial Purple, and Pynchon is justifiably embarrassed by it). Narratives often stall or fall apart or simply end before they have made any kind of point. "Entropy" shows stylistic and thematic potential; the prose isn't exactly clear, and is from time to time surrealist, but the characters are interesting and though, just as the introduction said, the story doesn't need the entropic imagery running under everything, it's still good, functional, well-made imagery. "The Secret Integration" is a bit clumsy at the end and perhaps feels a bit like a morality play, but by this time there's no question at all that Pynchon is well on his way to becoming not only a compelling stylist, but a master craftsman. The story is rich and convincing, the characters real in a way they weren't in the other stories, and the various themes and plot elements were all given exactly the weight they deserved. Pynchon himself called it a journeyman story, since V. was already out earlier that year, and he was on his way. Journeyman story it is. Watch out for more Pynchon in the future, but now it's time for King Rat, by China Miéville. Posted by August on 04.25.07 at 1:47 PM | Comments (0) #23 - Willful Creatures, by Aimee Bender
Willful Creatures is one of the most appropriate titles I've ever encountered for a collection of unlinked short fiction. All of these stories are strange, in their way (sometimes characters will be made of food, a detective pursues a trivial avenue of inquiry after a double murder, there is a world of tiny men existing below the larger world and sometimes its citizens are captured as pets), but each of her major characters acts in a way that can only be described as "willful". Even when they are drunk or depressed or succumbing to a bundle of disorganized neuroses it is the strength of their wills that pushes the action forward. The direction they push the action is never consistent; the man who buys the tiny person as a pet is alternately caring and cruel, and the boy with keys for fingers, even when most lonely, never lets himself stop trying to open doors. There are a number of blurbs on the cover and in the first few pages make much of Bender's prose style, calling it "musical", among other things. It is not musical. Not at all musical. In fact, it's fairly standard pseudo-minimalist post-Hemingway formal American prose. That sounds like it's a mouthful, but chances are good that if you've read anything by Raymond Carver or any of a hundred American writers of the last few decades you know exactly what I mean. It's simple, clear, steady and robust. "Musical" is what critics with no ear and no imagination call any prose they happen to like. Now I'm reading Slow Learner, by Thomas Pynchon. Posted by August on 04.24.07 at 1:17 AM | Comments (0) #22 - The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett
Next up: Aimee Bender's book of short stories, Willful Creatures. Posted by August on 04.21.07 at 8:47 PM | Comments (0) #21 - Cat's Crade, by Kurt Vonnegut
Next, something deliberately lighter, Terry Pratchett's The Light Fantastic. Posted by August on 04.21.07 at 1:40 AM | Comments (0) #20 - Deadeye Dick, by Kurt Vonnegut
Next, the last Vonnegut book for a while, Cat's Cradle. Posted by August on 04.20.07 at 1:49 AM | Comments (0) #19 - Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut's work is always very obviously the work of some guy sitting behind a typewriter. That's a strange thing to say, so let me explain. Nearly every author of fiction has his own rhythms, and though it's not always clear how they work (not to mention re-writes, correcting proofs, editorial aid or interference), every so often you can infer from the rhythms the smooth stroke of the pen, the cut and paste of the word processor, or in Vonnegut's case, the steady locomotive clack of a good old-fashioned typewriter. It's impossible to imagine him writing any other way. His prose is rooted in the IBM Selectric (insert your own Platonic ideal of the typewriter here). It's easy to dismiss the science fiction elements of this book as mere metaphor. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, journeyed to a faraway world and fathered a child with an actress whose picture he saw in a dirty bookstore in Times Square, all of it existing only in his head, a symptom of a cracked consciousness whose bits can no longer cohere, and are slowly falling away. Like the Kilgore Trout book Pilgrim finds in the bookstore, about the aliens who misinterpret (or do they?) the message of Christianity, looking on the science fiction elements in this way would be an error of scale. If we are to look at this as Billy Pilgrim (and because of some interesting narrative devices, Vonnegut himself, who is not only the narrator but also a character) simply falling apart because of post-traumatic stress brought on by living through the Dresden fire bombing, then we are left only with the singular; a human experience rather than human experience. If we accept the Tralfamadorians as real, then we have to accept Billy Pilgrim acceptance of the world, of humanity in all its glory and horror as real, and we have to face the facts that we, as a society and as a species, are equally as deplorable as we are noble, and that we always will be, no matter how much we put labels like "inhuman" on certain things we do. What we can do, is look at the good things, the good times, and hope there are more of them than the bad, and do our best to stay where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Next, Kurt Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick. Posted by August on 04.18.07 at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) #18 - The Writing Life, edited by Maria Arana
This collection is all pieces from a series run by The Washington Post Book World. They are mostly short, each piece being introduced by editor Maria Arana, who also wrote an introduction for the entire volume. Some of the best writing in here, somewhat surprisingly, is hers. What I found was a fairly clear division in emphasis between certain kinds of writers. The journalists, no matter what section of the book their places were in (there are sections on motivation, source material, looking back on your own work, etc.), tended to focus on doing the research, connecting with their subjects, and getting the facts straight. They were completely unconcerned with style, and with one or two exceptions it was virtually impossible to distinguish them; if you were to jumble their bylines and remove the biographical data I doubt that anyone would have noticed the difference. The biographers were all very similar to the journalists in their emphasis, but they had widely varying voices and styles. I gave as much attention to the essays by non-fiction authors as I did to poets and novelists, but to be honest I didn't really care. Most of them wrote about Great Americans or Great Moments in American History, and if you'll pardon my language, I just don't give a shit. Throw a rock into a roomful of a hundred American writers of non-fiction and you'll hit sixty that write on those themes, thirty five who write about themselves (again, who cares?), and five who actually write about something of interest to the rest of the world. I much prefer writers who make stuff up. The real reason I picked up this book, and the reason that it took me less than a week to read, instead of the standard two or three weeks with most works of non-fiction, is because of the likes of Carol Shields, Michael Chabon, Julian Barnes, and Umberto Eco. These writers are far more concerned with style than any sort of veracity. Some of them (Shields in particular, dating her piece August 13th, 2000, my twenty-first birthday) were incredibly candid about their relationship to their work once it was out there in the world, and it was refreshing to note that not all writers are Richard Ford or Norman Mailer, supremely, arrogantly confident. (I had a chuckle when Carol Shields was claimed as an American author; she was born and raised there, but wrote in and about Canada, and she loved this place as much as we, I hope, loved her. She is ours.) Some of the novelists put a distance between themselves and the work, acknowledging biographical influences but treating the work almost like a game (I'm looking at you, Eco), and others treated the work like a calling, rhapsodizing and building a wall of metaphor to isolate themselves from the nuts and bolts of the work. I can sympathize with both views; like Michael Chabon I am paranoid that readers (what few there are; hopefully there will be more in the future, when some of my projects find a home) will recognize the wrong things in my work as autobiographical, and I will be either vilified or mocked as being self-righteous, and like others I do feel the work is a kind of calling, a thing that must be done rather than a thing that I simply want to do. But really kids, you still have to sit down and do the damned work (playwright Wendy Wasserstein and some of the "pop" writers wrote excellent pieces that negotiated those two issues in interesting and useful ways). It's not always as good as it could be (Jimmy Carter? Please.), but this collection was one of the best of its kind that I have read, and it will stay in an easy to reach place on my bookshelf for a while to come. Next, to acknowledge the great man's passing, I will be re-reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and possibly a few others. Posted by August on 04.17.07 at 1:22 PM | Comments (0) #17 - Night of the Avenging Blowfish, by John Welter
Next is The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work, edited by Marie Arana (a collection of essays from The Washington Post Book World). Posted by August on 04.12.07 at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) #16 - Noise, by Russell Smith
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