GOOD BOOKS (THE FOLLOWING ARE 2008 BOOKS I LIKED:) SHADOW COUNTRY Peter Matthiessen--As big as its ambition 7-08 LUSH LIFE Richard Price--Rhythmic, compelling 6-08 OUR STORY BEGINS Tobias Wolff--Perfect short stories 4-08 THE PLAGUE OF DOVES Louise Erdrich--Dazzling and rich 6-08 UNACCUSTOMED EARTH Jhumpa Lahiri--Understated depth 7-08 PEACE Richard Bausch--Soulful short novel 7-08 THE LAZARUS PROJECT Aleksander Hemon--Inventive, sharply written 6-08 INDIGNATION Philip Roth--Assured, powerful 5-08 THE SOUL THIEF Charles Baxter--Lithe, haunting 6-08 HOW THE DEAD DREAM Lydia Millet--Lyrical satire 6-08 MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU Darin Strauss--Sharp, dark, suspenseful 6-08 FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS Annie Proulx--More Wyoming stories 5-08 GO WITH ME Castle Freeman Jr.--funny, noirish chivalry 5-08 TWO MARRIAGES Phillip Lopate--Voice-rich novellas 5-08 MUDBOUND Hillary Jordan--Old fashioned storytelling 5-08 DANGEROUS LAUGHTER Steven Millhauser--Fearless stories 7-08 THE END OF THE JEWS Adam Mansbach--Complex, poetic 5-08 DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES Jonathan Miles--Funny epistolary 6-08 MAN IN THE DARK Paul Auster--Thought experiment 6-08 ------ The BEAUTIFUL MISCELLANEOUS Dominic Smith. Fine coming of age novel about genius and accident and the mysterious ways in which our brains work. 5-28-08 DISTURBANCE-LOVING SPECIES by Peter Chilson. The novella at the beginning of this book, about a well-meaning teacher in Niger, is one of the best things I've read in a long time. 5-28-08 THE MOTHER GARDEN by Robin Romm. Wry, quirky short stories that often rise to poetic bursts of sorrow. 5-28-08 HUMAN RESOURCES by Josh Goldfarb. A little twisted, this was a fine collection of off-kilter stories. 5-28-08 THE GATEWAY by T.M. McNalley. Precise and empathetic, this is a collection of stories that seem to capture characters trying to swim to the surface. 4-28-08 YES, YES, CHERRY by Mary Otis. A very fine collection of stories, some linked by character, that capture these sweet, confusing bracing moments. 4-28-08 SACRED GAMES by Vikram Chandra. An unbelievable novel, an immersion in the crime and cops life of Mumbai, India. This is a big, big novel and not just because it's 900 pages. It's like learning a language. 4-12-08 THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff. The classic memoir of a childhood that feels like it's sliding off a cliff, and the creation of a writer. So clear and well-written. 4-12-08 OUR FORMER LIVES IN ART, Stories by Jennifer Davis. You can sense the lithe writing touch in these short stories, so the book plays like a good album--a couple of killer songs and some lessers--but no doubt a fine voice at work here. (3-24-08) NO ONE BELONGS HERE MORE THAN YOU, Stories by Miranda July. These are funny and quirky stories and some of them seem to crack at a profundity, but others feel wispy like fragments ... and what to make of the whole? In the end, I think it's a real performance from a distinctive voice and hell, it might just be great. (3-24-08) THE PINBALL THEORY OF APOCALYPSE by Jonathan Selwood. Funny, clever and sharply drawn, but Hollywood and the art world--are tough to satirize without drifting into the parody that emerges here. (3-24-08) A PUSH AND A SHOVE by Chrisotpher Kelly. A fine, well-written revenge-on-bully story slightly let down by its ending. (3-24-08) THE WATER CURE by Percival Everett. A dizzying internal story about a man seeking vengeance through water torture ... hmm, allegory maybe ... but cut through with Everett's fearless writing. (3-1-08) LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME by Vendela Vida. She already gets into literary heaven for The Believer and 826 Valencia, but this is a great novel, the writing razor sharp as we're artfully led through the story of a girl trudging through snowy Lapland to find out the truth of her birth. (3-1-08) THE BABY LOTTERY by Kathryn Trueblood. Awfully well-written story of five women whose lives are revolving around babymaking and delivering and raising ... has a great opening scene. (3-1-08) THE MIDDLEMAN AND OTHER STORIES by Bharati Mukherjee. This book exhibits Mukherjee's pitch-perfect craft along with a kind of virtuoso ability with voice. An unusually full collection of stories. (3-1-08) REVOLUTIONARY ROAD by Richard Yates. One of those books that every writer tells you have that you have to read and then when you're done, you go around telling everyone they have to read. Painful, funny and true. (1-9-08) A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN by David Foster Wallace. There are some brilliant essays here but some of it feels a bit dated, floating in that '90s po-mo precociousness. (1-9-08) ABSURDISTAN by Gary Shteyngart. Wow, what a big, hairy, exuberant novel, about the monstrous son of a Russian oligarch. Fearlessly funny. (12-16-07) THEN WE CAME TO THE END by Joshua Ferris. This book is undeniably funny and well-written (the collective first We ... voice is worth the price of the book alone) but it also builds to a depth and significance that surprised me. Very impressive. (12-16-07) HOMELAND by Sam Lipsyte. A squirmy, dead-on, hilarious voice drives this novel about a bitter and failed man writing guerrilla alumni notes for fellow graduates for his old high school. (11-1-07) IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. A devastating slice of the political hubris and mismanagement that led to the Iraq debacle. (11-1-07) BRIDGE OF SIGHS by Richard Russo. Great, classic Russo story of a small New York town and the triangle of characters whose lives swirl around the idea of art and settling and home. (11-1-07) HOLDER OF THE WORLD by Bharati Mukherjee. Ambitious novel about story and history that manages to offer dizzying connections to the past. (11-1-07) EAT THE DOCUMENT by Dana Spiotta. A masterful beautifully-written novel about '60s radicals living underground. The novel was compared to the work of Joan Didion and it's an apt comparision ... and about the nicest, dead-on thing I could think to say. (10-1-07) PU-239 AND OTHER STORIES by Ken Kalfus. Kalfus is so good at the mysterious element of voice and in these stories he paints Russia with dead-pan tragedy and pathos. The title story is perfect. (10-1-07) KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE by Chuck Klosterman. Very funny writer with a dead-on voice chasing a great idea (dead rock star vibes) that falls short, which may be the point, but still, falls short, which may be the point, but still ... (8-20-07) THE KING OF LIMBO by Adrianne Harun. A wonderful book of stories, both concrete and dreamy, and funny--wryly, surprisingly, scarily funny. (8-20-07) BRIGHTON ROCK by Graham Greene. You have to read a Greene novel every few years to remind yourself how a pro works--in this case with a 17-year-old gangster, nastiness and clean prose. (8-20-07) SHORT SHORTS, An Anthology of the Shortest Stories, edited by Irving Howe. I love this form and this is the best collection I've seen of them, an old one, but with Chekhov, Joyce, Kafka, Paula Fox, etc ... The best story, though, was by a writer I'd never read, Varlam Shalamov. (7-13-07) THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE SHORT STORY by Rick DeMarinis. Very good, unpretentious, straight-forward book on story writing that also tries to get at the mysterious, obsessive aspect of writing, what he calls the passionate virtuosity. (7-13-07) BELOVED by Toni Morrison. When it was named by the NY Times as the best work of the last fifty years I had one of those "why haven't I read this before" books. When I was done--moved, spent--I thought, Why haven't I read this before. (7-13-07) BLINDNESS by Jose Saramago. Stunning novel, a slippery allegory about a plague of blindness and the fearful and cruel reactions. The voice is unlike any I've ever read. (6-22) MYSTERY AND MANNERS by Flannery O'Connor. The essays about writing in this book are among the best I've ever read ... seems to me she effortlessly reaches the balance of reverence and work that writing requires. (6-22-07) BOOK OF SKELETONS by Rachel Vigier. I read this months ago, but forgot to write about it ... a lovely book of poems hinged on mass tragedy, but full of bracing personal moments. And the illustrations by the author's daughter are frightfully good. (6-14-07) LIVING BY FICTION by Annie Dillard. A little ethereal (loopy?) for my tastes, but a fine look at fiction as art and as life's work. (6-14-07) KOCKROACH by Tyler Knox. Gregor Samsa in reverse, bug wakes to find himself a man. Besides being a great premise, the book is nasty fun and manages to skewer literary pretense while being pretty well-written itself. (6-14-07) DELIGHTS & SHADOWS by Ted Kooser. I got over my hurt feelings at not being named Poet Laureate ... AGAIN, to read this. I love this kind of poetry, seeking clarity and image instead of just playing with language and trying for effect. Beautiful. "Some part of art is the art/ YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET by Jonathan Lethem. A light novel in every way, playful and funny. And Lethem's command of language is here, like the great punky pop song "Hell is for Buildings." (6-14-07) THE COLONY by John Tayman. Powerful true story of the people with leprosy exiled to Molokai. Wonderfully researched, sad and really well-written. (5-15-07) THE INTERLOPER by Antoine Wilson. Great, fun first novel, a nice, creepy James M. Cain-style story of a guy, a killer, a made-up girl, a frisbee, and a really bad idea. (5-15-07) THE COLLECTED WORKS OF TIMOTHY EGAN. Okay, Tim's works weren't collected by anyone but me, and I read them for a reading we did together, and I'd already read four of his books, but I was so impressed reading it all together by the subtle way in which his concern for what we're doing to the environtment cuts through his work--how he believes we should be changed by the land, and not the other way around. (5-15-07) THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS by Dinaw Mengestu. A beautiful, lyrical first novel about African immigrants filled with characters you come to know the way you know real people. (4-6-07) FALLING MAN by Don DeLillo. Reviewed this book about 9/ FLIGHT by Sherman Alexie. My friend Sherman's upcoming novel features a teenage Indian Billy Pilgrim slipping in and out of time and finding himself lurched through history. It's funny and challenging and powerful and the voice--Call Me Zitz--is perfect. (3-6-07) THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST by Jonathan Lethem. By one of my favorite writers, this series of essays on obsession and art is brilliant, building to the final one, Beards, which I first read in The New Yorker, about how we use books and music and movies to create a shell for our fragile selves. (3-6-07) MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY by Kurt Vonnegut. Slight and familiar, this is still Vonnegut! And to get even a few fresh minutes with that wry and cynical and always humane intellect is a treat. (3-6-07) DEAD BOYS by Richard Lange. A great new book of short stories that cuts between gritty realism and dark humor. (3-6-07) HOUSE OF MEETINGS by Martin Amis. Love me some Amis. This one is about the gulag and it's a wonderfully told story, with powerful writing and one of Amis's signature loathsome characters. (2-6-07) THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION by Michael Chabon. Comes out in May. The speculative history stuff is great, as is Chabon's always wonderful writing, too bad the noirish snappy dialogue and elaborate thriller plotting weighs it down. (2-6-07) THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE by Robert Evans. I've been reading a bunch of Hollywood books for research and this is the best bad book I've ever read. A temple of narcissism and gross sexual innuendo. Loved every second of hating it. (2-6-07) 20 JULY by Constantine FitzGibbon. Since July 20 is my birthday, my sister gave me this book about the attempt to assassinate Hitler, about which I knew almost nothing. I loved reading it and it was awful ... a theme lately. (2-6-07) BLACK SWAN GREEN by David Mitchell. A tight, evocative novel--almost linked short stories--about a boy growing up in England. Effortless voice. (12-6-06) READING LIKE A WRITER by Francine Prose. One of the best books on writing, and reading, I've ever come across. She starts simply, with words, sentences and paragraphs and ends grandly with Chekhov. (12-6-06) THE ECHO MAKER by Richard Powers. Beautifully written, fully imagined and, most important, deeply thought, this is a novel about the mystery of memory and the mind. Powers is brilliant. (12-6-06) A DISORDER PECULIAR TO THE COUNTRY by Ken Kalfus. A dark comedy about a couple disintegrating in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, complete with one of the most devastating endings I can recall. (12-6-06) THE FLANDERS PANEL by Aturo Perez-Reverte. A smart whodunnit involving chess, art and smoking Spaniards. Good, but why are so many mysteries--even literate ones--so damn talky. (12-6-06) LOST CITY RADIO by Daniel Alarcon. This book comes out in February and it's terrific, a sad but vibrant story of a nameless, war-torn country in which names of the missing are read on a weekly radio show. 10-14-06 NOBODY'S ANGEL by Tom McGuane. I wanted to re-read this raucous Montana cowboy novel before starting on McGuane's new short story collection. Cuts right through the phony Western piety. 10-14-06 HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT by Nick Hornby. More of Hornby's great Believer book column (full disclosure: he also writes about one of my books). 10-14-06 PASTORALIA by George Saunders. Inventive short stories by the New Yorker regular, some of which are surprisingly moving. 10-14-06 THE TURNING by Tim Winton. Beautiful short stories linked by the characters and told from every possible angle, so that the effect is of circling around this small Australian town and seeing the characters in three dimensions. Winton is a great writer. 9-30-06 SATURDAY by Ian McEwan. Hypnotic story about a neurosurgeon and the way history and violence seem to be stalking us. McEwan's writing is so bloody (since he's British, I get to use the word) good and this story hums with danger. 8-28-06 THE NEW YORK TRILOGY by Paul Auster. Dizzying stories about the mystery of storytelling, identity, language and sanity, these three pieces are quick, sharp and near perfect. 8-28-06 THE LAY OF THE LAND by Richard Ford. I got an advanced copy of this, thrilled as I was to see Frank Bascombe, Ford's hero from The Sportswriter and Independence Day return to fill out the trilogy. It all works beautifully, because of Ford's rich sentences and Bascombe's self-destructive honesty, until a late-inning decision to incorporate some capital A-America symbolic violence. (8-1-06) THE DOG OF THE MARRIAGE and TUMBLE HOME by AMY HEMPEL. Two collections by the sharp and powerful short story writer, complete with her (I think) less successful fragments and whispers. Dog is the better of the two books, with one piece, Offeratory, that is as good a story as I've read since Richard Russo's The Whore's Child. (8-1-06) THE DRAMATIST by KEN BRUEN. The great Irish crime writer burrows his dry, drunk existential creation Jack Taylor into more seediness and it's as achingly dark and funny as ever. Sometimes I wish the plots would stay home and I could just watch Jack be. (8-1-06) I SAILED WITH MAGELLAN by STUART DYBEK. Very fine book of stories with a tremendous novella (Breasts) in the center. (7-10-06) THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES by PAUL AUSTER. I love everything Auster writes. This one was more expansive than his earlier books, a bit more realistic and linear with less of his usual hint of paranoia. Auster is always enjoyable, but for me ... this was a bit less intense. (7-10-06) GREAT APES by WILL SELF. Sorry, Will. I couldn't finish this. Seemed interesting enough, but snarky dialogue by humans is one thing. Kept waiting for Charlton Heston. (7-10-06) ON THE ROAD by JACK KEROUAC. It's scary to go back to books you loved as a kid. The energy's still here, but if you take out the phrases "in the night" and "into the night" the book is 25 percent shorter. Still, the earnest appetite for life is the real thing, and I ended up forgiving Kerouac his indulgences. (6-5-06) LUCKIEST MAN by JONATHAN EIG. Lou Gehrig's life story, this is stiffly written, but still a very poignant story of an athlete in decline. As Gehrig began to fail he couldn't understand, just kept ordering lighter bats. (6-5-06) TISHOMINGO BLUES by ELMORE LEONARD. Great stuff about a cliff diver gone down to Mississippi to earn money at a casino and bizarre Civil War re-enactors. Sometimes, I just wish EL would bag the murders and robberies and just let the people go about their business. (5-10-06) THE KNOWN WORLD by EDWARD P. JONES. Right. Genius. The voice puts you off for just a moment ... a telescoping nonfiction omniscience that drifts around in time and offers everything from census records to how the character is going to die even as that character is in the moment of some bit of action. And what moments: an overwhelming novel. (4-30-06) CONCRETE ISLAND by J.G. BALLARD. If I had a dime for every time I've read this old saw: man crashes Jaguar onto highway median, becomes shipwrecked on desolate piece of land between busy highways ... a dark, po-mo Robinson Crusoe. Dark, disturbing, funny and perfect. (4-30-06) LUNAR PARK by BRET EASTON ELLIS. Okay, I didn't actually read this, but listened to it on CD, read by ... James Van Der Beek, TV's Dawson Creek. Against all odds, and knee deep in narcissism, this turns out to be a really entertaining book, mixing self-loathing, self-parody and self- ... something in a satire/ THE LAST DAYS OF IL DUCE by DOMENIC STANSBERRY. Very well-written, unsentimental and gritty noir about two brothers in North Beach, the section of San Francisco that was Italian and has become mostly Chinese. (4-30-06) ORPHANS by CHARLES D'AMBROSIO. A Seattle writer, d'Ambrosio has a great voice and this nonfiction collection (mostly from The Stranger) is more voice than reporting. The best ones sing, although to read them all at once is like sitting next to one of those brilliant/ THE SEA by JOHN BANVILLE. I've generally been well-served by Booker winners, but this one felt ponderous and despite some powerful descriptions of a widower's grief, I had to abandon this one midflight. (4-8-06) THE LINCOLN LAWYER by MICHAEL CONNELLY. Nice ripping start to this legal thriller. The writing is clean and effortless, but then it becomes too complex for its own good, the twists more important than the writing and characters. (4-8-06) DRAMA CITY by GEORGE PELECANOS. Great pacing and a couple of unexpected characters, but the voice distracts, drifting from ghetto vernacular to stiff cop talk in the same sentence. (3-15-06) THE CONSTANT GARDNER by John LeCarre. Here you go. This is how to write a suspenseful story. Maybe a bit dialogue heavy, but real characters in real trouble. Then saw the movie, which is also great. (3-15-06) SPECIMEN DAYS by MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM. Swirling stories built around Walt Whitman's poetry, but ultimately the book sinks like a stone. (3-15-06) THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA by PHILIP ROTH. Almost a guilty pleasure, kind of beachy with some rough seams where the memories childhood are juxtaposed against a speculative historical novel about fascism in America. But parts of it sing. (3-2-06) JESUS' SON by DENIS JOHNSON. Quick, vivid, dreamy, disoriented and funny and the whole emerges from the diffuse parts like an impressionist painting. And dude was seriously stoned. (3-2-06) COSMOPOLIS BY DON DeLILLO. Big DeLillo fan. But this book is cold, flat and soulless. Maybe that's the point, but it's a dull point. (2-16-06) NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN BY CORMAC MCCARTHY. Yikes! Wonderful beginning, but some turgid moralizing and a drift at the end broke my heart a little. Still, give me B-minus Cormac any day. (2-16-06) THE BRIGADIER AND THE GOLF WIDOW BY JOHN CHEEVER. His collected stories made me want to read this one. Good stories all, but I can see why the title story and The Swimmer have made the turn into anthology-land. (2-16-06) BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE BY DEE BROWN. Thirty-five years later, this is still a vital and powerful book, an Indian history of Western American aggression. (1-21-06) DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY BY ERIK LARSON. The way Larson alternates between the high and low of this story (ethereal architectural ambition vs. nasty serial killer) you end up feeling a little dirty because you can't wait to get back to the bad guy. (1-21-06) THE EARLY STORIES BY JOHN UPDIKE. The first story Killing is a kick to the gut. Most of the rest turn more gently, and are masterful. The introduction, in which Updike reveals what he's learned in fifty years (fifty!) of story writing is worth the price of admission. (1-13-06) LOST IN THE CITY BY EDWARD P. JONES. Jones' classic short stories are full and patient. Some are a little too classic, veering toward cliche, but the best are revelations. (1-13-06) THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER. I'd read a couple of these stories in anthologies, but to read them together is thrilling. You can see the stories forming, the wry experimentation, and the characters emerging in dry, descriptive rhythm. (12-7-05) CHRONICLES (VOL. 1) BY BOB DYLAN. So entertaining, so understated ... so weird. Like Dylan, it's great with its flaws. When you're this honest, even the tics seem artistic. Best of all: no ghost! (12-7-05) THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, by Joan Didion. One of my favorite writers, this is--as everyone knows by now--a wrenching account of the death of her husband and illness of her daughter. She writes so clearly and reports so faithfully about grief. (12-7-05) SHOPGIRL, by Steve Martin. Light, gentle story and Steve can write a little, although his best work is still ... "Aw come on, I'm talking about her cat ... that cat was the best fuck I ever had." (12-7-05) GILEAD, by Marilynne Robinson. Beautiful. A quiet, perfect little novel that takes an idea that could have been quaint and stodgy--a dying Iowa pastor writing a letter to his young son--and creates a subversively philosophical narrative. (11-15-05) THE DIAGNOSIS by Alan Lightman. A smart novel with the unstable footing of a guy who snaps on the train one morning and forgets everything. Lightman's Einstein's Dreams is one of my favorite books. (10-15-05) A MOVEABLE FEAST by Ernest Hemingway. Ha. Forgot what a shit Hemingway was, in addition to being brilliant. Every few pages, he comes across some other writer who lacks the stones to achieve greatness, Ford Maddox Ford, Fitzgerald and the poor guy he goads into becoming a critic, telling him not to complain about writing, to either write or quit and go home. (10-15-05) PLEASE DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON by Dean Bakopoulos. A lovely, carefully written and elegiac first novel in which all the fathers in a blue collar town disappear. (10-13-05) JOE GOULD'S SECRET by Joseph Mitchell. Re-read this for a class I'm teaching and was amazed all over again by Mitchell's patience as a writer and, of course, the story, Professor Seagull's life. (10-13-05) THE HIGHEST TIDE by Jim Lynch. A beautiful first novel about growing up, sex, squid, crushes, the tides, starfish, music, Rachel Carson, animal penises, divorce and heartache. (9-10-05) JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT by Celine. First published in 1932, this book is honest and irreverent to the point of disturbing, it's the French author's tale of World War I, but it is completely modern and pertinent. "Could I, I thought, be the last coward on earth? How terrifying!" (9-10-05) HENDERSON THE RAIN KING, by Saul Bellow: Gene Henderson, big tall ugly American, haunted by his internal voice ("I want, I want, I want") goes to Africa. Bellow could write a little. (9-10-05) RAYMOND CARVER, AN ORAL BIOGRAPHY, by Sam Halpert and THE HONEYMOONERS by Chuck Kinder. Together, these anecdotes (most from writers like Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, William Kittredge and Jay McInerney) about the great short story writer and Kinder's noisy but entertaining novel about Carver make a nice set, although the danger is losing Carver's short stories to the sway of these boozy recollections. (9-10-05) CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell. Dizzying. Near perfect. Six stories constructed like a Russian nesting doll, connected thematically. When I read reviews saying the book was a meditation on ___ I don't always believe it, but this WAS a meditation on violence and slavery and consumerism. Six page-turners infused with brilliance. Still chewing this book. (8-4-05) HARRY POTTER II and III, by J.K. Rowling. My 5-year-old son and I are working our way through the Potter books. Okay, sure it's great and makes you feel like a kid, but I'm just not buying that she's had this whole story planned out for years. Seems more seat-of-the-pants than that. I have this image of the dolt who divorced J.K. years ago. Doh! (8-4-05) A LONG WAY DOWN, by Nick Hornby. Four strangers intent on tossing themselves off a building meet in London on New Years Eve. Its like a series of monologues the way each character takes over the stage and tells part of the story. Funny and filled with the little bits of truth that Hornby has mastered. (7-18-05) TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, Peter Carey. Yeow! Carey inhabits the legendary Australian bandit Ned Kelly. Drifts toward hagiography, but the voice is so amazing that you can't stop reading. Remember in Fistful of Dollars, when Clint Eastwood wears armor under his poncho for the big gunfight? Well, Ned Kelly did it first. (7-7-05) THE MUSIC OF CHANCE, Paul Auster. Odd and hypnotic ... a feverish, allegorical book about a couple of gamblers who become imprisoned because of a debt. I love Paul Auster's writing--its deadpan noirish beauty--especially this and BOOK OF ILLUSIONS. (7-7-05) JOE DIMAGGIO, Richard Ben Cramer. Cramer is a little mythical and sometimes overwrought for my tastes, and he takes some weird detours that make this book feel padded. Still, a fascinating life. (7-7-05) THE HOURS, Michael Cunningham. I put this off for years. I hate reading the same book everyone else is reading at the same time they're reading it. But with his new novel coming out, I picked this up. It's really lovely, lean and mystical and sigh-inducing. (6-15-05) RABBIT, RUN, John Updike. Re-read this because I was about to move on to Rabbit is Rich. It's amazing to return to something ten years later. It's like reading a different book. It's, of course, great, but Harry seems, all these years later, strangely naive. (6-15-05) THE BELIEVER (magazine) and THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE, Nick Hornby. The collected columns by Hornby from The Believer, the cool San Francisco literary magazine. (6-15-05) HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE: Obscure little book. Probably long out of print. Read it to my son and we both loved it. (6-15-05) FIVE NOVELS I RECOMMENDED WHEN ASKED DURING A READING FOR A BOOK THAT SOMEONE MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF: (5-22-05) ERASURE, by PERCIVAL EVERETT. An amazing satire that leaves nothing unscathed, even itself, like a snake devouring its own tail. On the surface it's the story of a black author who writes down to the market, but that's only the beginning. THREE FARMERS ON THEIR WAY TO A DANCE, by RICHARD POWERS. Powers is an acquired taste, a smart, almost purely theoretical novelist, but I think this is his best book in some ways, about art and fate and nothing less than the twentieth century. BEING DEAD by JIM CRACE. This is a book about ... being dead. The characters die right away and one thread of the story is about their decomposure. Unflinching and surprisingly human. TIME'S ARROW by MARTIN AMIS. A funny, sophomoric, ultimately deep novel that moves backward in time and does it better, I think, than Andrew Sean Greer's very fine new novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI, the great movie Memento and the Seinfeld episode about the wedding in India. THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, J. HENRY WAUGH PROPRIETOR, by ROBERT COOVER. I'm a big fan of Coover, the great metafictionist, and this is my favorite of his books, a funny, dizzying book about shifting realities. MORE RECENT READS: SAUL BELLOW: HERZOG and THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH. Augie is pure voice while Herzog is pure psychological truth ... as if Bellow's neural pathways led directly to the page. "... My vanity will no longer give me much mileage and to tell you the truth, I'm not even greatly impressed with my own tortured heart. It begins to seem another waste of time." Ah. (5-5-05) ENRON BOOKS ... THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS by Kurt Eichenwald. Eichenwald, a reporter for the New York Times, gets to build on the earlier work by the two Fortune reporters, and much is repeated, but either builds up a good rage. Amazing how quickly we just swallowed this story without fully understanding it. Also saw the documentary of THE SMARTEST GUYS. (5-5-05) OUT ON BOOK TOUR ... I saw several authors speak at literary festivals. Some highlights: SALMAN RUSHDIE: Having finished a couple of Rushdie books, I was excited to hear him close out Get Lit, the Spokane literary festival. He was brilliant--funny and engaging and challenging. He was an old pro banging out new and old stuff, busting guitar strings, the literary version of hearing Elvis Costello in concert. (5-5-05) RUSSELL BANKS: Read from his new book, The Darling, to close out Wordstock, the Portland book festival. Banks is a wonderful reader and, of course, an amazing writer (My personal Banks ranks--1. Sweet Hereafter; 2. Continental Drift; 3. Affliction.) but he simply read for an hour. Zzz. (5-5-05) GLEN DAVID GOLD: The author of Carter Beats the Devil, he read from his new book at Wordstock, a great bit about Charlie Chaplin. I also caught SARAH VOWELL, but the acoustics at the Portland Convention Center weren't quite what they are in my car. (5-5-05) Some other Get Lit highlights: Tod Marshall and Dennis Held, John Whalen. The Eastern Washington University Creative Writing faculty (Chris Howell, Sam Ligon, Nance Van Winkel, Jonathan Johnson and Greg Spatz) had an amazingly diverse reading--expert poems, stories, Johnson's memoir and a glimpse of Ligon's new novel. (5-5-05) FIRST HAND, a book of poems by Linda Bierds. Pitch perfect, steeped in science, lyrical and as crystal clear as poetry (or prose) has a right to be. (4-4-05) FURY, Salman Rushdie. I loved Rushdie's masterpiece MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN but this book misses the very culture it looks to satirize. (4-4-05) STEP ACROSS THIS LINE, Rushdie's nonfiction collection. Ruminative, funny, varied pieces about everything from The Wizard of Oz to Frank Zappa to chilling passages when he was in hiding because of the fatwa against him. (4-4-05) Memoir From Ant-Proof Case, by Mark Helprin. Funny and rich and about as imaginative as a novel can get about ... about ... well, among other things, a lifelong anti-coffee crusader. (3-4-05) Safe in Heaven Dead, by Sam Ligon, a wonderful novel with a dread inevitability that compels you keep reading. (3-4-05) The Wilt Alternative, Tom Sharpe. So funny. So objectionable. The sequel to Wilt, again passed on by my old professor Don Wall. (3-4-05) --The Blitz, a novel by Ken Bruen, an Irish novelist whose books are like noir poetry. (2-15-05) --Making Certain it Goes On, the collected poems of Richard Hugo, beautiful, grubby northwest realism. (2-15-05) --High Brow Low Brow, by Lawrence Levine: how Shakespeare was wrestled away from the masses. (2-15-05) --102 Minutes, The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, by Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer. Harrowing. (1-25-05) --Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again: Turns out I loved this in college for the wrong reasons. (1-25-05) --James Stewart's Disneywar. Disney's inside story is like professional wrestling without the tights. (1-13-05) -- Rabbit Redux. Oh yeah: brilliance. (1-13-05) --I've been reading a fair amount of poetry. my favorites recently: Light's Ladder, by Christopher Howell and Memoir of the Hawk, by James Tate. (11-8-04) --Francine Prose's new book, A Changed Man. Reformed neo-Nazi? Dead-on. (11-8-04) --Theodore Zeldin's An Intimate History of Humanity: like that great humanities course you got a C in. (11-8-04) --First season of Arrested Development on DVD. I especially love the character of Gob (prononuced Job) the idiot magician and womanizer. (11-8-04) --James Welch's Fools Crow, Riding the Earthboy 40 and The Heartsong of Charging Elk. Welch, who died last year, was such a patient and generous writer. (10-7-04) --The Garden of North American Martyrs, Tobias Wolff's first book of short stories. (10-7-04) -- House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (a big, expansive, postmodern story-within-a-story-within-a ghost story ...) (9-12-04) --Francine Prose's wonderfully funny (but also poignant) Blue Angel. (9-12-04) --Wilt, by Tom Sharpe, a wild British farce about academics, feminism and sex with blow-up dolls. (9-12-04) The books in William Kennedy's Albany Cycle (a few of which I've read before): --Legs --Billy Phelan's Greatest Game --Ironweed --Quinn's Book --Very Old Bones --The Flaming Corsage --Roscoe Mythic and earthy and near perfect. (7-1-04) -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobiography "Living to Tell the Tale". He's the author of one of my all-time favorite books, "One Hundred Years of Solitude." (7-1-04) -- The jazzy "Fortress of Solitude" by another of my favorites, Jonathan Lethem ("Gun, With Occasional Music" and "Motherless Brooklyn") (7-1-04) |
Stuff I LikeFROM THE INLANDER-- |
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