Books I Read February 21st, 2021

Last week I read the following...

Saint Peter's Snow by Leo Perutz – A doctor in pre-war Austria has a gothic adventure in an wind-swept Silesian village/anticipates the discover of LSD/explains European history in this slender classic by an unjustly forgotten genius. Everything I read by Perutz is fabulous.

The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes – An immature Englishman sojourns to Munich two weeks before the Beer Hall Putsch, encountering a variety of people and circumstances serving as a synecdoche for larger European circumstances. I thought it was a little too neat.

Little Apple by Leo Perutz – A fanatical Austrian's single-minded pursuit of revenge leads him across the devastated landscape of post-war Europe. This reads like some mad amalgamation of Borges and Graham Greene, and if that doesn't hook you you should stop reading my reviews.

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khew – A magical trickster type has some breezy, bloody noir type adventures in a fantastical Kuala Lumpur. I hesitate to use the term palate cleanser for obvious reasons but this was quick and fun and nasty.

The Swedish Cavalier by Leo Perutz – A nameless man aspires above his station in this bleakly beautiful fable. Just gorgeous. Perutz was a fabulous talent, I don't understand why he hasn't been rediscovered.

Books I Read February 15th, 2021

Happy President's Day. I am feeling uncharacteristically lazy this afternoon, bud I have forced myself to put up a list of the books I read last week, one day late.

The End of Me by Alfred Hayes – Hayes' authorial surrogate returns to New York a failed cuckold, gets involved with some sixties tropes, in what was not my favorite episode in this trilogy. Not that it was bad either, Hayes was a gifted writer but this felt maybe a little self-indulgent even at less than 200 pages.

Six Four Hideo Yokoyama – The press director for the police force of a Japanese province finds himself in the center of an elaborate power struggle between various factions within the mammoth bureaucracy that is the Japanese police force. Excellent – one of those rare genre novels which feels genuinely fresh, not simply because it transpires within a non-Western context but because the characters, issues, and narrative itself are genuinely original, concerned with motivations and events rarely dealt with in conventional crime. I dug it.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Flowers of Mold Ha Seong-Nan – South Korean is revealed a trash ridden hellhole in this bleakly effective if one note collection of shorts.

The Mahe Circle by Georges Simenon – A vacation in southern France inspires in a bourgeois country doctor the instinct to reject his carefully constructed existence. Simenon's non-Maigret stuff is uniform in its excellence but apart from that they're all very distinct, and this is excellent, strange, dark stuff, breaking off in unanticipated and discomfiting directions. Excellent.

Books I Read February 7th, 2021

I climbed to the top of a mountain and saw snow last week. Apart from that I abide my a life of monastic self-discipline, interrupted by walks and occasional baking. I also read these books...

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. – A kingdom of farm animals fights off the devil and his minions. I went into this with high expectations, and there were some cute aesthetic flourishes but essentially I found it so moralizingly tedious as to inspire C.S. Lewis toward petty theft.

On the Yard by Malcolm Braly – A panoramic view of an American prison in I guess the 50's. Braly spent much of his life locked up for armed robbery but there is nothing of the prison noir here, rather a sincere and sympathetic attempt to depict the lives of the inmates and staff. Excellent stuff, Braly is an astute observer of the human condition and in particular of those commonalities which unify the species despite the manifest differences in our circumstance. It's also tightly plotted, cleverly structured, really an excellent book. NYRB killing it as always.

Jack by Marilynne Robinson – The latest in Robinson's Gilead – epic? Saga? As you like – follows the eponymous prodigal son, a self-destructive melancholic wino who falls in love with a respectable black teacher in 1950's St. Louis. Although it doesn't rise to the profound brilliance of the first 2 books in the series, Robinson remains a lovely writer whose work seems infused with a genuine moral sense. Reading Marilynne Robinson, Christianity almost makes sense.

River of Teeth

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg – A woman makes a compelling case for having shot her husband in the head in this swift, grim and affecting novella. Fucking men, dude.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata – A vacant convenience store clerk struggles to conceptualize the complexities of human society, preferring the simplified order of her neon-lit workplace. At once a satire on societal conformity and a gentle depiction of a damaged soul. I dug it.

Books I Read January 31st, 2021

Basically I spent all week waiting for this giant rain storm which ended up not being shit. So that was kinda disappointing. Apart from that I’ve been baking a lot of enriched breads. I also read the following.

Sundays in August by Patrick Modiano – I was walking around Atwater Village in the pleasant sun and felt like feeling nostalgic and faintly noir-y and there was Pat, waiting for me in the book store. Before picking it up I did have to go through the last three years of book reviews to make sure I hadn't already read it and just forgotten. Take that for what you will.

Ladivine by Maria Ndiye – The destructive power of love as demonstrated through three generations of women. Also, colonialism. There's a lot of talent here but it didn't come together for me.

Watership Down by Richard Adams – To write a book which can be appreciated by individuals widely varying in reading comprehension is an enormous and difficult achievement, to judge by its rarity far more challenging than writing a book which can be appreciated only by people of high ability. I think this book is a genuine masterpiece, evocative, horrifying, beautiful, charming. The sketch of rabbit civilization is enormously well realized without being intrusive, the narrative is exciting and heroic in the best of ways. Maybe my favorite all time work of fantasy? Certainly up there.

Keeping An Eye Open by Julian Barnes – Essays on the last 200 odd years of Western art. Thoughtful, witty, engaging, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The Train by George Simenon – The German invasion of France offers a petit bourgeois the opportunity to express hidden passions. Hell of a sting – Simenon could chop them out.

Books I Read January 24th, 2021

Weather has finally arrived here in Los Angeles. By birth and upbringing a resident of the Northeast, I am well aware that our winter – which consists of daytime lows in the 50s, occasional periods of grinding and miserable rain interrupted by delightful bursts of sun – is to be envied over that of most of the rest of the planet. Still, misery is subjective, and its unfamiliarity renders us ill-prepared to deal with it (witness the disturbing fact that more LA unhoused freeze every winter than SF and NY combined). To judge by my weather app, most of next week will see Angelenos huddled around our space heaters and dreaming of the nine straight months of sun which constitutes our other season.

In any event—these are the books I read last week.

Negrophobia: An Urban Parable by Darius James – A surrealistic, horrifying, semi-humorous faux-screenplay exploring American racism. I felt I’ve seen other writers explore this territory with better success.

Hieronymous Bosch by Virginia Pitts Rembert – Two things about Jerome that cut against his Christian message and give his art a (probably unfairly) reputation for transgression. The first is that the characters in the hellish portions of his paintings don't seem usually to be that bothered by being shat out they sphincter of an anthropomorphic organ grinder (or whatever). The other is that the paradisaical portions of his paintings tend themselves to be so weird and horrifying, with crystalline towers and odd animals, that looking at it you're kind of going 'shit man, if that's paradise maybe I am better off with monkey-faced whores, drinking drafts of hellfire and playing dominoes with an obese cat-man.

Prefecture D – Four novellas dealing with members of the Tokyo police's internal bureaucracy, and their attempts to maintain justice while upholding the complex code of etiquette/ethics which underlies Japanese law enforcement – which, if you hadn't guessed, are super, super weird. These were weird and engaging, I'm looking forward to picking up something longer by the author.

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld – The remarkably miserable story of an impoverished Dutch girl and her rural, reactionary, lunatic Christian family. Contra Tolstoy's dictum, I tend to find books dedicated to the intimate depictions of failed families tedious, but even by the standards this was not good. Ghoulish, nasty to the point of self-parody, unreflective in any meaningful sense of the human condition (even the human condition at its very worst), and written in a voice which sounds utterly unlike that of the 10 year old girl it is intended to represent. The success of this book can only be attributed to the perverse quality found among the critical elite of mistaking an unpleasant read for a profound one.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones – A sorcerous cad is saved by the intrusive affections of a not-quite-everywoman heroine. Appallingly adorable, worthy of the esteem in which its held.

Pylon by William Faulkner

The man (the writer) sat in the early morning sunlight beside the window he had meant to clean but didn't yet, drinking his coffee from the coffee pot that he never cleaned, because he believed that there was no point in cleaning a thing just to put the thing you cleaned back into it or maybe only because he was lazy, or maybe (who knows?) because he just never thought about it, it was just a thing that sat there because it always sat there, demanding no more of you than the distant though visible mountains or even the horizon itself.

The book, you were talking about the book.

Right, right, the book, of course. So he sat there drinking his coffee which was not the cheap kind of coffee but not the most expensive kind of coffee either, in his neighborhood there were, right now, even with the pandemic raging and LA County breaking new highs for death every day even then you cold still walk right out down the block and go into a coffee shop/general distributor of precious things and buy a eight ounces of beans for twenty or twenty five or even thirty hard-earned (not by him, we have told you he is a writer, but by someone) heard-earned American dollars, not to mention a set of rose-gold measuring spoons and a knitted afghan for your niece.

The book, though, you were going to tell us about the

Book, the book, I remember. So he getting set just then, at the very moment, with his record player spinning some psyche-country tune and his medium-expensive coffee cooling getting ready to write something about this book, which is about a New Orleans air show and various shenanigans descending from said spectacle, but it occurred to him that there isn't really a point to explaining the plot of a Faulkner book--

But you said you would--

no point because you aren't reading the books for the plots, not even for the best ones some of which have very good plots but (of course (of course)) for his long, rolling sentences, which at first are tedious but as you sort of sink into it become more and more pleasurable to work through

I disagree!

like falling in love or a stone rolling downhill. They're fun to read but they're also lots of fun to write, you look down and boom you've got a thousand words straight, with nary a punctuation mark to mar the space. It's so much fun to write like that that he (the writer, the one in the chair in the sun) sort of figures the other writer (the dead one, the southern one, the one with the alcohol problem) might have gotten so caught up in the sheer joy of pumping out language that he did not always have energy to dedicate towards quality control, particularly when putting back a few pints of whiskey each afternoon.

For God's sake! For God's sake!

It's OK. I'd probably start with Absalom, Absalom.

Books I Read January 17th, 2021

Been thinking lately about all the many blessings life has bestowed, and the responsibilities implicit in that good fortune. Read the following books.

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya – Engaging, surreal short horror in modern Russia, somewhere between Gogol and...I don't know, a modern horror writer with a literary bent. This has not been my best review.

Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln by Gluckel von Hameln – The recollections of a 17th century Jewess trying to survive economic disaster, political instability, worthless husbands, useless children, and the omnipresent opposition of the Goy. A blessing on for our Saras and our Rachels, our dark-haired Rebeccas and fierce-eyed Miriams! Of such has the tribe survived our exile.

Oreo by Fran Ross – A peculiar and evocative retelling of the Theseus myth, with the protagonist a bi-racial superwoman investigating the Hebrew half of her lineage in New York City. Reminiscent of Ishmael Reed in its reconfiguring of Occidental (or in this case Semitic) narrative and thematic constructs, and line to line the writing is a great joy, strange and funny. Good stuff.

Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon – A collection of items appearing in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906 by the author, an influential figure in the Parisian literary and artistic scene of the early 20th century, all having to do with some form of crime or general sin. I thought it was kind of funny and a quick read, but I'm a weird dude so what do I know.

That Time of Year Marie Ndiaye – A Parisian extends his summer holidays a day too long, loses his family in a nightmarish vision of a French provincial town. This sub-genre of European paranoid fiction is usually not to my taste but this is excellent, creepy and discomfiting, a tight little nightmare that starts easy but lands with deceptive strength. Definitely returning to this author.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl – Didn't you ever wonder, hey, what if at the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when they were flying in their elevtator or whatever, Wonka and Charlie's family went into space to fight aliens or something? No? Well, too fucking bad then. This project of re-reading Roald Dahl has turned out to be a complete waste of my time. He's a lazy anti-Semite and nothing he wrote holds up at all.

Books I Read January 10th, 2021

Hell of a first week, amiright? Given the demonstrated weakness of our institutions and national character is is fortunate for all of us that the man attempting sedition is of the basest idiocy and most contemptible character, or we really might be in trouble! I don't imagine many people reading my blog voted for Trump, but if you did, may you carry the shame and ignominy of your reprehensible foolishness until they lay your cold corpse in the unforgiving soil. If you ever read a book of mine, I dunno, Low Town or the Builders or whatever, and you thought – wow, that Warden is a cool guy, he's tough and wins fights and whatnot, let me clarify that the Warden would fucking hate Trump and everything he stands for and anyone who stood with him. Ditto the Captain, M from City Dreaming, everyone I ever wrote except for some of the villains and mostly even they were too intelligent or principled to throw their lot in with the obese ochre-colored conman that has been, appallingly, the supreme executive of my nation for the last 4 years. Fuck you.

So far in January I read the following books.

Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry – Two aging criminals wait for someone in a grimy port terminal in southern Spain, recollect their wasted, tragic, sometimes beautiful lives in what begins looking like a fiercely nasty crime novel but ends up becoming something sadder and more plaintive. I've been a big fan of Barry's nostalgia-filled noir since I picked up the magnificent City of Bohane on a lark some years; frankly, I'm pleased to see the rest of the world catch up.

Staying On by Paul Scott – An epilogue of sorts to Scott's masterful, very long Raj Quartet, dealing with the decline of British rule in India, and the corruption and decay of the English culture on the sub-continent. It presents the story an elderly ex-military couple, two minor characters who have chosen to 'Stay On' in post-colonial India rather than return to the homeland, of their sad history and the experience of living on past one's time. Scott's focus on the forgotten players in world history makes for fascinating reading, and his oblique characterization is masterfully subtle if occasionally so dark that it makes for difficult reading.

Three Sumers by Margarita Liberacki – A trio of sisters from the rural elite enter womanhood in pre-War Greece. Largely due to NYRB Classics I find I've read quite a lot of books this broad sub genre, and so this might have suffered a bit by comparison (I'd prefer Joan Chase) but this was bucolic and charming and not un-erotic and worth your time.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Other Stories by Maxim Osipov – Short stories searching for the soul of Post-Soviet Russia. I enjoyed the focus on parts of Russian society outside of the Moscow/St. Petersburg elite, but for whatever reason these didn't really kick my head open. I gather this is Russians' most highly prized writer of short fiction so that might well be my fault but what can I tell you, it's also my blog.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – The rare circumstance in which the movie is much better.

Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford – Surreal literary horror. Sort of like a New Jersey Catholic Etgar Keret, but with more stabbings. If that doesn't get you going I don't know what to say.

Sunflower by Gyula Krudy – Melancholic Dual-Monarchy romance of the highest order. Krudy's Hungary is a land of moonlit trysts between faithless cads and cruel women, densely populated by the ghosts of old lovers, where death and love are so deeply intertwined as to be indistinguishable. Nimbly skirting parody, elegantly written and often laugh out loud funny, one of my favorite things I've read in a long time, strong rec.

The Spider's Palace and Other Stories by Richard Hughes – I couldn't really figure out if these collection of modern fairy tales were supposed to be for children, and not in a good way.

Books I Read December 31st, 2020

Excuse the delayed post, I've spent the last few weeks making food and then eating that food. The weather is lovely here in LA, and despite having no space left in our hospitals and the generally apocalyptic tenor of the times I manage to muddle along. Hope that you can say the same.

Down Second Avenue by Es'kia Mphahlele – Autobiographical vignettes from an early luminary of African letters. I found the early bits, detailing the author's childhood in rural South Africa (and later in a Pretorian suburb), his familial customs and struggles, to be particularly engaging, but then, 'vivid recollections of youth from people outside of my cultural milieu' is one of my favored sub-genres.

The BFG by Roald Dahl – Reading for a project. Actually quite charming, despite the endless far jokes. Dahl has a gift for funny language which is one of (the?) main asset for a writer of children's books.

All About H. Hatterr by G.V. Desani – A series of comic misadventures/religious commentary relayed by an Anglo-Malay neer-do-well in vivid and hysterical bazaar English. Even the bits that made no sense at all to me were fun to read.

My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl – Snippets from the ostensible journal of the author's uncle, a modern day Casanova. Absolute unmitigated trash. Just horrible. Genuinely one of the worst things I've ever read. Not erotic, resolutely unfunny, the entire plot consisting of a single joke stretched out interminably; that it is also misogynistic and racist is the least of its sins. Avoid.

By Night Under the Stone Bridge by Leo Perutz – Linked vignettes from the Prague of Rudolf II, who reigned over a vibrant and cosmopolitan city soon to be destroyed in a riot of religious violence. Really excellent. Perutz was the last generation of the Dual Monarchy, and uses the plight of the Prague Jews (and the horrors of the 30 year war) to evoke the tragic violence which destroyed the Central Europe of his youth. Worth your time.

The Odyssey (T.E. Lawrence Translation) – Re-reading this for who knows how many times I was struck by the grand emotion of the players. The idea of masculinity at this point in Greek society owes nothing to the sobriety of Socrates or the Stoics—everyone is always wiping away a tear, or running over and hugging people and whatnot. It's also really Bro-y – there's some monster fighting here and there but more of the narrative is like, “Joe, my dear friend, oh I missed you so let's exchange tripods and cry about our dead friends.' Also, this was the first time I'd read the Lawrence translation and it's just complete fucking garbage, all of the poetry and weight of the language is lost.

Ulysses by James Joyce – When I first read this some six or seven years ago while backpacking around somewhere or other I remember feeling that I understood about 30% of it and also that it was my new favorite book. In contrast to other competing works of genius (St. Petersburg, Confidence Man, The Recognitions) Joyce's novel seems a perfect fractal, so infused with spirit that to unlock a corner of it is to offer some access to the enormous bounty beyond. Coming back to it years later I was pleased to feel that certain sections I had found impenetrable proved, like Molly herself, more willing to yield to my attentions, and that fundamentally my opinion (commonly held but still) that this is the foremost work of English letters remains intact. The fecund beauty of the thing, the fabulous stir of the language (which is such a joy to read even when you can barely grasp the content), but most of all the fundamental sense of optimism which underlies the work, its affirmation of the glory and beauty of human existence – 'yes I said yes I will Yes.'

Indeed. Happy New Year.

Books I Read Chanukah Edition

Last weekend I was having a conversation with a fellow homeless outreach worker who started volunteering post-Covid and whom I have only ever seen masked. A clever, forceful brunette, she nevertheless betrayed her goydom by suggesting that that, unveiled, I would struggle to determine her relation to the Second Temple—which is, of course, meshugenah. A yid is a yid is a yid.

Vos makht a yid? He gets by. Anyway, in honor of our least important holiday I decided to read exclusively fellow Hebrews this week, and if I have to wade through any more wry witticisms, maternal guilt and sexual neurosis I’m going to lose my shit. What follows are the books I've read this week along with how Jewy they are.

Fly Already by Etgar Keret – Even a not-my-favorite-Keret is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. How Jewy is it? More Israeli than Jewy in the American sense. 5 out of 8 candles.

Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhbition by Bernard Malamud – A Bronx-born artist (Jewish, obviously) travels to Italy to pursue his craft, descends into penniless madness. A thoughtful commentary on the life of the Artist as depicted through Malamud's brand of dreamy absurdity, thoroughly enjoyable. How Jewy is it? Surprisingly not that Jewy, apart from a little bit of Freudian stuff. 3 out of 8 candles.

Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object by Laurie Colwin – The early death of her WASP husband leaves our protagonist, a bright but underdeveloped Jewess, struggling to create a new identity amid the wreckage her life. A lot of thoughtful depictions of emotional states, but something about it left me kinda cold. How Jewy is it? Really not that Jewy, maybe 2 out of 8 candles.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon – In an alternative reality where the state of Israel died stillborn and a colony of refugee Jews built a shtetl city in Alaska, a brilliant but self-destructive noir archetype investigates the murder of Mashiach in a Jewish colony. I dig Chabon, especially his genre stuff, and this is an excellent, engaging work of neo-noir. How Jewy was it? It was pretty fucking Jewy, 7 out of 8 candles.

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman – An uncannily and discomfitingly accurate depiction of the romantic misadventures of a caddish if not entirely horrible Baltimore born Brooklyn based novelist. Ms. Waldman has an impressive degree of insight into the mindset of one of these sad breed, and this made for engaging if kind of cringy reading from my end. The versions of this story that I've read – all written by men – tend to be more cynical and crueler to their surrogates, as if to demonstrate the gap between the craven behavior of their protagonist and the author himself. Perhaps because she is free of this burden, Ms. Waldman manages an impressive sympathy for her characters, and genuine insight into the struggle of love in the modern day. How Jewy was it? However Jewy I am, that's how Jewy this book is—let's say 3 out of 8 candles.

The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar – Lavie is a friend, which means that I got to read an advance copy of his book. Normally this also means that I have to say nice things about it, or at least keep my mouth shut, but the thing about Lavie is that in addition to being my friend he is also that sort of Jew who is comfortable with a high degree of awkwardness (incidentally, this is one of the qualities which has made us such fine salesmen over the centuries, bargaining being (largely) a willingness to endure the discomfort involved in insisting on an unreasonable price). This makes him an occasionally irritating dinner companion, but it also means that you can walk up to him and say (as I have said) I think your last book wasn't nearly as good as the book before and he'll basically shrug it off because he, at bottom, just doesn't care that much about any opinion that isn't his. We have a lot in common.

Anyway none of this is relevant because I actually did quite like this book, which is going to come out at some point in the future by some or other publisher or something. The Man With No Name travels through an impossibly alien world peopled by brutalized clowns, superhuman bounty hunters, and titanic monsters indifferent to human suffering—although being a Lavie Tidhar book, there's a step beyond the main story that I'll avoid revealing. A blurb from me being at worst harmless, I will comment for the record that 'Tidhar's brand of surreal pulp continues to be one of the few truly distinctive voices in genre fiction.'

How Jewy is it? By Lavie's standards, really not that Jewy. There were, for instance, no Nazis, which must have been a real struggle for him to manage, good job on that. Actually, thinking on it this is far and away the least Jewy book that I read this week. I'm going to go with 1 of 8 candles

Herzog by Saul Bellow – In retrospect I do wonder what could possibly have led me, in high school and early college, to make a fairly comprehensive study of Saul Bellow, the most middle-aged writer who ever ran a hand through his thinning hair, took a look at his zaftig lover and had a thought about Nietzsche.. And the weird thing is like, I remember loving this book. I remember feeling like I really identified with Moses Herzog, despite having undergone literally none of the life experiences which consume him. Very odd.

Anyway my current incarnation found it to be a mixed bag Some of the internal soliloquy really sung, but basically all the characters that aren't Herzog are pretty crudely sketched. Not just the females either (though it is worth noting they span the gamut from 'Highly Sexed Current Lover' to 'Manically Sociopathic ex-lover') but the guys likewise—and not in a 'Herzog is self-obsessed' way either, more like a 'no one who ever lived talked like that' way. How Jewy is it? Enormously. Really very, very Jewy. Full marks, 8 out of 8.

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner – A critique on the above Bellow, along with the 'Highly-Strung Self-Obsessive New York Jew Loses His Shit' genre more broadly. In theory I would be well-primed for this sort of meta-commentary but in practice I found this tedious enough not to want to say anything else about it—except that, for what it's worth, the entire Tinder subplot was off base entirely. It's also possible I just don't need to read any more books about wealthy New York intellectuals. How Jewy is it? Not that Jewy, maybe 3 of 8 candles.

Books I Read December 6th, 2020

One chugs along, despite the packed hospitals and the threat of Christmas wildfires. I have to get this done quick because I'm remote baking biscotti with my mother. It's been a weird year, maybe you've noticed. This week I read the following books.

Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong – A collection of short stories set in modern day Malaysia. Always interesting to read fiction from a part of the world with which you're unfamiliar but this didn't do a ton for me personally.

Lexicon by Max Barry – A secret international cabal of mind-controlling magicians trouble the wrong borderline street girl in this enormously engaging sci-fi thriller. A marriage of excellent if undemonstrative writing with a propulsive pace. Tons of fun.

The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini – The history of a family of Jewish immigrants/the rise of modern capitalism rendered as an epic poem by an Italian. Brilliant. The writing absolutely sings, with hidden complexities and clever contrivances that don't interrupt the rhythm of the blank prose. The characterization is deft and depiction of some two hundred years of American history surprisingly nuanced. For for a goy (I assume) he understands the tribe. Strong recommendation, one of my favorite things I read this year. (Update: Wait, they made a play out of this? What? I'm confused.)

White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid's Bitter Roots as Witnessed 8 Generations Afrikaner Family by Marq de Villiers – The history of the Afrikaner people as told through the writer's ancestors. Fascinating and peculiar stuff, effective both as a general overview of the subject and as a meditative and thoughtful contemplation as to the complexities of ethnic identity. Check it out if you have any interest in the subject.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez – The hard-bitten captain of a space ship cares for a child with strange powers, though this thumbnail sketch fails to do justice to the richness and complexity of the plot. The world building is evocative without being tedious, and Jimenez demonstrates skill in a number of narrative styles. This is one of those enormously rare work of genre fiction which is fundamentally human, that is to say reflective of one's own experiences and concerns. Really, really good. Strong recommendation.

Books I Read November 29th, 2020

Happy belated Thanksgiving. I cooked a lot, which is a thing I do now because I have the capacity for self-growth. Also, I read some. I actually read a little bit more than the below would indicate, because I read one book I didn't like so much that I figured there was no point in putting it up. In any event, the books that I will admit to having read this week follow.

Take Me Apart by Sara Slisar – A noir in the Gone Girl mode. Not for me.

Fathers and Sons by Turgenev – These kids today, with their rock and roll music, and their efforts to educate the serfs. They don't care about nothing, not the Tzar, not the Russian Orthodox Church, nothing but Germanic nihilism and tight pants! Back in my day...

The Looking Glass War by John Le Carre – An out of date army intelligence unit sends a spy into east Germany. Like Graham Green, Le Carre (Carre? How do you do that one?) is fascinated not so much by spycraft per se than on its effects on the men who practice it, their false loyalties and self-destructive patriotism—less, that is, the lies they tell others than the lies they tell themselves. This one in particular is very strong, sharp and sad, worth your time.

The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis – The sexual, psychological and philosophical shenanigans of a group of soldiers involved in a secret atomic experiment. Part spy novel, part cold war farce, part theological discourse, with each component realized skillfully. Amis is a delight, as always.

Books I Read November 22nd, 2020

No reviews for three months, and then one the next week? Yeah, it's called self-improvement motherfucker, it's my jam. Lather it on a nice fresh chunk of sourdough and eat it with my morning coffee. It's kinda winter here? We're all going to be back in lock down in a couple of days. I'm adjusting to the idea of doing nothing fun over the holidays. It's OK, I've had fun before. The Seventh Perfection was on Kirkus's best of the year list, that was cool. You should buy it, if you haven't. Here are the books I read the last week.

The Root and Flower by L.H. Myers – Dostoevskian intrigues in a dreamlike, deliberately inaccurate depiction of the early Mughal empire. Lots of conversations about religion, and long passages depicting characters emotional state. This is probably not my favorite subgenre of novel, so I can't say I loved it, but I could recognize the craft, and I enjoyed the aesthetic and some of the subtler flourishes.

A Dance to the Music Time (Volumes 1-12) by Anthony Powell – Very big books have to be judged differently than regular books. It is not enough to say of one that it is skillfully executed, or has admirable aspects, it has to justify the enormous expenditure of time and energy required to complete it, as well as to satisfy the implicit narrative ambitions of so audacious an undertaking. Writing this review, I'm torn on whether I feel that Powell's 12 volume epic depicting London society between the wars and shortly after met this high bar. There is an enormous amount to like about it. It is truly epic in scope, with a cast comparable to War and Peace, all well-realized and skillfully drawn, moving in and out of the narrative with their own unexpected but authentic rhythm. Their development over the course of the several thousand pages feels extraordinarily authentic, perhaps more so than anything else I can remember reading. Powell has a genius for depicting the untidy aspects of human life, its unexpected developments and certain tragedies, its refusal to adhere to a convenient narrative. The attempt to chronicle a lost epoch, combined with the exactness of its observation, recalls Remembrances of Things Past, but whereas Proust's surrogate is at the heart of his work, the hero of A Dance to the Music of Time always remains for us somewhat opaque. His primary function is to detail the maneuverings of his associates, and we only gain knowledge of his own history and emotional state obliquely. The result is a masterful and enticing subtlety that lingers throughout the work. So, with all of that, what's on the other side of the balance? It is fucking huge, if that wasn't already clear. I read the first volume three-odd months ago, while quarantined in a flat near Tottenham, and I just finished it the other night (although obviously I read a lot of other things in the interim). Someone with a normal amount of time to commit to reading might do well to finish it in six months, and that's a lot of time to demand, time which might be better put towards some similarly epic text, assuming that's your bag. I also find the ending curiously weak, although I would be open to having someone argue me out of this opinion, if you happen to feel that and want to correct me in the comments. Considering the matter, I think my relative dislike of this last 12th of the narrative has unduly prejudiced me towards the previous 93%. This is a pretty spectacular artistic achievement, if anyone has a mind to giving it a go.

The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs – An adult fantasy by (one of) my favorite YA author. Bellairs has a delightful aesthetic but this was kinda slapdash.

Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo – The ascension of the last Empress of a fantastical kingdom is chronicled in a series of objects. The clever framing device allows for an engagingly rapid movement through the story, recreating a 1000 page epic fantasy in a small fraction of the space. Vo has a gift for the small asides which, for me, largely make or break fantasy-- her names are really good, for instance, and the throw away mentions of weather magic, and the briefly but skillfully limned northern peoples, who collect ambergris and ride war mammoths into battle. Fun stuff, well worth the read.

Ficciones by Jorge Louis Borges – I enjoyed this about as much on its 20th reading as I did on the first. Actually that's not true, the first time I read this I think I was like 15 and I was all – 'this is fantasy? Why aren't there more swords?' so let's say I enjoyed this about as much on its 20th reading as I did the 2nd. Some of the most engaging and wondrous short fiction ever written. Obviously, you all should have read Borges by now.

Books I Read Mid November

What can I tell you, I don't always feel like writing these. I had a book come out. I went to England for a while, during which I mostly just wanted to read mediocre histories of the 'people hit people with sword' type. Then there was that whole election thing, I was kinda busy last month worrying about the fate or the Republic/world. This has not been a great year reading wise, what with everything, but I'm gonna turn it around, you'll see.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano – There is always some danger in re-reading a book that you loved, the fear that, with the cruel benefit of hindsight, you might need to walk back high praise and answers on online dating profiles. I am pleased to report that no such revisionism is required here. Bolano's masterpiece remains to me as horrifying and beautiful as when I first read it some seven or eight years ago, a cri de couer, a searing demand to lead a life of vibrant sincerity in the face of the world's cowardice and inevitable decay. There's a reason I got Cesária Tinajero's poem tatooed on my chest.

A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov – The ruminations and warped biography of a mentally infirm man. Also a lot of other things. This is a weird, wild, very odd novel, large portions of which could only loosely be understood as a narrative. But it was witty and interesting and I basically enjoyed it.

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple – An overview of the East India Trading company's rise from its humble trading origins to the state-corporate monstrosity which overwhelmed the weakened Mughal Empire and devastated the Indian subcontinent. Dalrymple is a first rate narrative historian, but I thought this topic perhaps a little too broad to cover even in this substantial volume. Which isn't to say it's not excellent, only that it's not quite as spectacular as some of his other stuff.

In Pursuit of the Essex: Heroism and Hubris on the High Seas in the War of 1812 by Ben Hughes – Deathly dull.

How the Dead Live by Derek Raymond – Our unnamed detective investigates the disappearance of an old woman in a small town, discovers tragedy and corruption. It's a little one-note in its despairing noir nihilism (false nihilism really) but it is effective and well-written.

Free Day by Ines Cagneti – The thoughts of a bitter impoverished French girl during the course of a skipped day of school. Sad, and predictable.

History of Scotland by P. Hume Brown – I always think it's kind of fun to read a history which has become a historical document, and I think this breezy, conversational early 20th century history of Scotland counts. There's no real reason for anyone to read this but I can't say anything too terrible about it either.

The Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Frazier – The author of the Flashman series overviews the violent history of the Scottish/English borderlands. I enjoyed mulling this bloody history of raids and counter raids from the small English cottage in which I spent most of September and which rested in the heartland of what was once violently disputed territory, entertained by the thought that the stolid English elders who drank cider in village pubs and walked glumly through the endless the rain are the descendants of such brutal bandits as Crack-spear and Hob-the-King.

Soldier Sahibs by Charles Allen – Narrative history discussing the generation of soldier-bureaucrats who conquered the Punjab and put down the Sepoy Rebellion/Indian Mutiny. Engaging enough on its own merits but I found myself somewhat discomfited by the unwillingness of the author to consider the larger moral and political issues endemic to the story, particularly having just finished Dalrymple's above.

Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Italy by Lauro Martinez – A biography of the Rennaisance friar who led Florence into pious anarchy and was burned by the pope for his troubles. Dull and pedantic.

No Room at the Morgue by Jean-Patrick Manchette – A French Phillip Marlowe investigates a woman's murder. This lacks some of the raw nastiness and genre-bending satire of the author's later/better works, but even a second-rate Manchette is worth its weight in clipped copper.

Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson – Episodes in the life of a south English otter. Reading this it occurred to me I never read nature writing and don't really love it, but that's purely down to predilection and I imagine most people would have enjoyed it.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan – I read this book.

The House with a Clock in it Walls by John Bellairs – This was one of my favorite books when I was about 6, I guess, and I was feeling autumnally nostalgic and went back and re-read it. Still fabulous! It's got a charmingly weird aesthetic, and manages to incorporate magic in a way which is weird and fantastic and horrifying and not a rote recitation of fake Latin. Our chubby, cowardly, kind-hearted protagonist is likewise far more engaging than the pompous earnest perfection of the Boy Who Lived and his million precursors/clones. Edward Gorey and I give this our seal of approval.

The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs – Yeah, also good, although the edition I downloaded had this horrifying awful updated pictures. Anyway, read these to your kids or whatever they'll enjoy them.

The Cobra's Heart by Ryszard Kapuściński – Engaging ruminations on Africa by a Polish emigre.

High Crimes by John Westermann – Two fuck up cops get in over their head in this (mostly) engagingly unheroic thriller. Imperfect, but authentic feeling in its depiction of crime in a small city and I didn't feel like I'd read its take on police life a thousand times previous.

In Corner B by Es'Kia Mphahlele – Short fiction by the grandfather of Black African English literature. Excellent. The language is discrete in its bluntness, and the stories that fabulous uncertain quality which is the hallmark of the best works in this genre. Reminded me of Naipaul in its use of a traditionally Western format to comment on and critique a non-occidental culture. The one about the dogs is nuts man.

Shella by Andrew Vachss – A nameless super-killer tracks down his single love, kills a lot of people in the process. Enormously readable but kind of repetitive. I mostly liked the pared down noir narrative but sometimes felt like it was an excuse for lazy world-building. He does have a talent for depicting nastiness, however, and there are some pretty sharp throw away lines.

Books I Read July 31st, 2020

Right. What can I tell you, I got kind of sick of this exercise, and stopped keeping track of the books that I've read. Maybe you noticed. Probably you didn't. Anyway, I'm fine, I write and bake bread try not to get Covid (but not that hard) and since the world went insane I've read the following works of literature...

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare – Not bad.

War Music by Christopher Logue – An incomplete recreation of the Illiad, brilliantly capturing the spirit of this foundational human text in vivid colloquial English. Enormously enjoyable to see the the classic figures of myth reworked, with Athena a spoiled, precocious child and Ulysses crooked as an elbow. Alas that it's unfinished, and the best bits never made the page. Still worth your time.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – Engaging historical fiction, though I confess I didn't find it to be much more.

The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford – In an alternate history where Byzantium expanded to the Atlantic (is it alternate history when magic exists, or is that just fantasy?) a rogues gallery tries to keep England free. Probably one of the better fantasy books (I'm going to go with that) I've ever read, Ford has a real talent for plotting, his language is strange and not at all bad, and his take on Richard 3rd is the absolutely original. Lots of fun.

Machines in the Head by Anna Kavan – The collected rantings of a disturbed woman with indisputable literary talent. A lot of the surrounding text on Kavan talks about how strange and alien her writing is, but honestly I found it to be of at type with a lot of of other writers – a lot of Kafkaesque reworkings of her own mental health collapse. It didn't really blow my skirt up but what do I know.

Malicroix by Henri Bosco – A well-meaning but unformed youth finds adventure, himself while house-sitting the shack of a deceased misanthrophic kinsmen. Kinda like if Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a Gothic romance, but you know, French. I thought it was lovely and weird and charming.

The Translator by John Crowley – A woman recollects 60s academia, her possibly supernatural experiences translating a dissident Russian poet. Some lovely lines, although I confess I tend to prefer Crowley at his more fantastical.

The Moving Target by Ross McDonald – I'll pretty much always read a Lew Archer book to be honest.

Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o – A murder investigation sprawls into an elaborate chronicle for corruption in post-colonial Kenya. The various viewpoints are vibrant and well-realized, but it's political message (if admirable) is heavy-handed and cuts against the complexity of the story.

Mr. Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner – A well-meaning if ineffectual Englishman (a stand in for the race) is called to preach Christ on a Polynesian island. Warner has a beautiful style of prose, and there are some lovely and thoughtful passages contained herein. I couldn't help but feel, however, that (as with The Corner that Held Them) her clear contempt for Christianity makes the satire feel mean-spirited and somewhat trite.

He Died with his Eyes Open by Derek Raymond – Our nameless protagonist (I've done that!) investigates the brutal murder of a down and out writer (the author's obvious stand in). The crime bits are clever and nasty in the best sort of ways, but a great deal of the book consists of the detective listening to the victim lament the hypocrisy and brutality of human existence, a form of writing which tires me quite quickly.

Book I Read April 30th, 2020

A few low days but I got my Covid second wind and breeze alongcomfortably, a childless man with a freezer full of chicken and a profession which doesn't require him to leave the house. My score the second half of this month was affected by my current project of reading a Shakespeare play every evening (Julius Caesar awaits) about which you'll read more when I'm finished, by which point hopefully I'll be able to go outside again. We'll see. In any event, the second half of April I read...

Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas – 1000 odd pages detailing the decline in magical belief in 17th century England at the expense of the comparatively rational Protestant faith. Exhaustive in its collection of magical beliefs and clear-headed in its thinking, if occasionally repetitive. Still, if you're looking for a doorstop of social history to wade through, you could do a lot worse.

Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath – Bitter and engaging.

Books I Read April 14th, 2020

I got things to write, music to listen to, weights to lift, walks to take, elderly folk to assist (email me if you want to help!) and of course, books to read. I'm hanging on, and I hope you're doing the same.

I read these books the first two weeks of April...

Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard – Re-read for a thing I'm writing. Still great.

High-Rise by J.G. Ballard – Disturbingly appropriate.

The High Window by Raymond Chandler – Pitiless mothers, weak-willed sons, Chandler's archetypal noir protagonist, surely you can't fault a fellow for seeking literary comfort in these dark times.

The Thief's Journey by Jean Genet – The scattered reflections of a minor thief, thug, and homosexual prostitute, some bizarre amalgamation of Edward Bunker and William Burroughs. As a youth Genet set out to explore the darkest and most sordid corners of the human psyche, in part as a deliberate reaction against conventional human morality and in part just because it seems to have given him a kick. It's weird and disturbing and kind of amazing. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to everyone but if you can force yourself through all the nastiness it's worth your time.

The Singapore Wink by Ross Thomas – A stunt man is drawn into an elaborate web of criminal conspiracy. I turned the pages quickly enough but can't say I got tons out of this.

The Queen of Katwe by Tim Crothers – The story of a bitterly impoverished Ugandan girl rising in the ranks of woman's chess made for a fabulous long form essay and an an absolutely interminable 200 pages.

The Blacks by Jean Genet – A surreal symbolic depiction of the plight of black folk in the West. I guess it must have been staged at some point, but I can't imagine how that would have went.

Triggernometry by Stark Holborn – Fair warning, Stark and I are old friends, but this brief story of a mythical west where mathematics have been outlawed and rogue academics rob trains was thoroughly enjoyable and well worth a few hours of your time. Lots of fun.

Winter Mythologies and Abbots by Pierre Michon – A delightful series of interlinked vignettes discussing god, belief, the power of story and faith. The prose is lovely, the narratives surreal and clever. Reminded me of Borges. Lots of fun, I'm going to check out more by Michon soon.

Family Life by Akhil Sharma – A man recalls his childhood emigration from India to America and the tragic results that befall his fractured family. Didn't do much for me personally.

Books I Read March 31, 2020

Right—so I'd like to blame the slow start to this year book wise on the apocalypse, and whatnot, but that's got nothing to do with it, really. I had a friend here for a while and apart from that I was pretty much spending all my energies on pushing through a first draft of a new WIP. But that's with my agent and we can't go outside and my weight set hasn't arrived from Amazon and there's nothing else to do but read and mull, mull and read, with a dash of despair for seasoning. Anyway. Here were the sad handful of books I read the last two months, while I was wondering about LA and then stuck inside my cell-like apartment, very resolutely not having a cigarette.

All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe – A detective investigates a woman's disappearance, the corrupt credit system of early 90's Japan. It was kinda slow.

Birth at Dawn by Driss Chraibi – A brutal warlord leads the Muslim expansion into Spain, dreams of a better world, is disappointed in its reality. Lyrical, violent, short, excellent. I liked it and will pick up more by Chraibi.

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion – A morally bankrupt Hollywood hanger on commits to her self-destructive decay. Didion can write, this is sharp and mean, but also kind of one note? I appreciate that life is often an open wound, but still I wish so much of contemporary literature wasn't dedicated to poking at it. That said it's a quick, well-written and funny if you've got a nasty sense of humor—which, if you don't, maybe you shouldn't be reading Joan Didion.

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson – A collection of short stories about death, drunkenness, bad decisions and generalized regret. Johnson's novels don't do a shit ton for me but his shorter stuff is generally very strong, if maybe a little bit one note.

You Are Free by Danzy Senna – Short stories about motherhood, race, gender, modernity, yuppies, etc. Which, frankly, could be the description of about 100,000 collections released in the past ten years, although very few of them are anywhere near this good. There is a sympathy and complexity to Ms. Senna's writing which marks her as a cut above her fellows, and these stories are genuinely thoughtful rather than overtly didactic. Good stuff.

Last Friends by Jane Gardam – The final installment in the Old Filth trilogy sees us explore the peculiar life and end of Terry Veneering, who's bitter childhood tragedy drives him into a career in law in the orient. Gardam has a peculiar talent for plotting, with lots of obfuscations and seeming irrelevancies revealed ultimately as being critical to the narrative, and basically I enjoy reading anything she's written. Can't help but think this would have been stronger as a single novel, though, rather than chopped up into thirds.

Havoc by Tom Kristensen – The very model of a bourgeoisie intellectual makes a more or less conscious decision to devolve into a drunken lout. An existentialist trope that frankly I'm kind of tired of by this point, so maybe I wasn't the best audience for this. Anyway, didn't do a lot for me.

March Violets by Philip Kerr – A private detective tries to find some jewels during the Berlin Olympics, as the growing Nazi menace makes questions of personal morality largely irrelevant. Swift, engaging, a decent enough potboiler in an interesting setting. Occupied my mind briefly during our bubbling apocalypse.

The Medieval Castle by Phillip Warner – A book about castles. I dunno, I can't really remember why I read this.

Triple Jeopardy by Rex Stout – My first foray into the apparently gigantic history of Nero Wolfe, a lazier, rotund Holmes, and his Watson analog Archie Goodwin. These were breezy and fun, I imagine I'll work my way through a few more while I'm stuck in my cell-like apartment or an indeterminate amount of time.

Margery Kempe by Robert Gluck – Contrasting tales of a medieval saint's adoration of Christ with the author's own obsessive affection for a younger man. Is this a clever idea or is kinda on the nose? Hard to say. It's also the kind of book where some of the lines are really fabulous and some of them are just total duds. But it's quick and it's weird and I thought it was kind of funny and ultimately this was firmly in the like column.

A Journal of the Plage Year by Daniel Defoe – Thematically appropriate!

A Theft by Saul Bellow – I've been going back and dipping my toe into Bellow to see if he holds up 20 years after I was obsessed with him and I...still can't tell? He manages to imbue his creations with a great deal of mythical energy, but sometimes this gets a little bit much, with every side character being an oil magnate or a faded drunken ex-Hollywood star, you get the idea. This is one of the few of his that I can remember reading with a woman as the protagonist and it didn't work absolutely perfectly for me. I dunno, now that I'm quarantined maybe I'll have time to read something more significant by him.

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler – Like all of Chandler's work it's disjointed, kind of incoherent plot wise, racist, sexist, and a little mawkish. It's also got some of the best prose you're ever going to find in literature—there's a bit about a pink bug crawling across a police desk which is pretty marvelous. And for that matter Marlowe's brief adventure with Red, the beautiful, violet eyed ex-cop is indisputably the most potent romantic interaction in Chandler's oeuvre. I think it's a ton of fun, for all his faults Chandler remains at the top of the heap.

The Inferno by Dante (Longfellow Translation) – There are a fair few classics of world literature that I can genuinely claim to enjoy but I just do not give the slightest shit about Dante. I appreciate his role in making Italian an acceptable language to write poetry in, but basically this book sucks, sorry. The best you could say for it is that it effectively depicts medieval Catholic morality, but as this is an utterly contemptible philosophy by the standards of most people reading it I'm not really what the point is other than to feel superior to our ancestors. Even trying to be forgiving it just doesn't make a shred of sense. Why are counterfeiters worse than rapists? For that matter, why is the 7th level as big as all the rest of them combined? Dante himself is the original Mary-Sue, a tiring asshole who's just so gosh-darn special that all of Heaven and Hell have to make way to show him a good time. A thousand pages of biblical fan-fiction the point of which mostly is to get back at old associates. It's like if you wrote a book about going to hell and kept putting in people you knew from high school getting their heads ripped open or whatever.

So, you know, that's my take.

Books I Read February 5th, 2020

I know it's been a while. You've been waiting, 'more patient than a Browns' fan.' But I got shit I got to do, boss. I write things and such. I talk to people. You know how it is. Maybe it's occurred to you I don't get paid none for these brief, semi-informed views on novels that came out a long time ago and no one else really wants to read. Still, as my brother texted me last night – 'quit tweeting about the homeless and do more book reviews.'

Ask, and ye shall receive. The following are the books I read since the turn to 2020.

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald – An Englishman in Moscow during the waning days of the Romanov Dynasty is abandoned by his wife, contemplates the absurd improbability of the Russian character, human existence. I've come around on Fitzgerald, a subtle and funny writer, even if her neatly wrapped narratives can come off a little twee.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman – I liked the mean ones.

Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala– An orphan is forced to become a child soldier by a sadistic, pedophiliac martinet. It's grim, it does what it sets out to do, I was never absolutely mind-blown by the depth of thought or the excellence of the prose. It's a heavy premise and I kinda thought that did a lot for it. Take that as you will.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – A starving student pays for taking Nietzsche too literally. What can I say about this justifiable classic of world literature? You read Dostoevsky to watch mammoth expressions of contradictory sentiment clash across the page, and not for like, coherent plot mechanics. He's his own genre, unique even 200 years on, and it must have been absolutely staggering to read him back in the day. I'm kind of embarrassed it took me 35 years to get to this one, but if Raskolnikov taught me anything it's that confession is good for the soul.

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill – A collection of nightmarish short stories. I came in bluntly skeptical but there's some strong stuff here, Hill's got chops and generally does a good job of navigating between genre scares and broader literary concerns. I liked the one about the kid and the cardboard box fort, and the Cape, which is straight nasty.

The Gathering by Anne Enright – The expectedly unexpected death of her miscreant brother forces a woman to reflect upon the failings and tragedies of her large, Irish family. I've got nothing bad to say about it but it failed to stick around in my head to any degree.

Beasts by John Crowley – In a broken America, a leonine crossbreed becomes a symbol for humanity's redemption. At once a striking and original adventure story and a brilliant allegory for our increasing divorce from the natural world. Crowley is a master.

First Love and Other Shorts by Samul Beckett – Beckett's neurotic, miserable, possibly insane everyman considers his lost love and miserable childhood, plus a couple of wackily incoherent shorts that I likely lacked the literary understanding to appreciate. The eponymous story is excellent, however.

The Judges of the Secret Court by David Stacton – A fictionalized history of the events surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln, with particular though not exclusive focus on the Booth clan. An engaging and evocative thriller about the roles we play, and our complicity in the show that unfolds around us. Very good.

By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar – (Full disclosure—every couple of years Lavie and I end up in the back of a bar saying mean things to one another, so I can't pretend to be entirely unbiased here) A re-telling of the Arthurian legend serves as Tidhar's opportunity to shove all his genre interests into one violent, funny, absurd epic, with Guinevere as a cold-blooded hitwoman and Lancelot a wuxia master. Tidhar remains an utterly original voice contemporary fiction, a pulp master striking out boldly in unexpected directions.

The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russel Hoban – A middle-aged cartographer, disappointed with his life and family, flees his village for the city, pursued by his son and an invisible though not imaginary lion representing the vigorous potency of existence and its helplessness in the face of implacable death. I became convinced this month that Russel Hoban is one of the mpre original and underappreciated voices of 20th century literature, and this is exhibit A. Magical realism at its finest, strange and evocative and beautiful. A strange delight, worth savoring.

Lancelot by Walker Percy – A southern lawyer laments sexual modernity, the consequences of his wife's infidelity, while locked in an insane asylum. A funny, bleak, tortuously nasty insight into what would now be called toxic masculinity, peculiarly prescient given these incel heavy days. I really liked it, but its ugly.

Mr. Pye by Mervynn Peake – A would-be saint gets caught between heaven and hill, and the consequences of righteousness and sin, while trying to bring happiness to a small Channel island. It's weird, it's funny, it was nice to read something by Peake which didn't mostly involve descriptions of rumbling masonry.

Novelties and Souvenirs by John Crowley – A nearly universally excellent series of shorts by maybe (probably?) the best living fantasist. Excellent, well worth your time.

Pilgermann by Russel Hoban – A castrated Jew meets Jesus, joins the first crusade. A spiritual, one might even say mystical novel, about sin and God and meeting God and meeting characters from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. Didn't really do it for me but it certainly demonstrates the man's range.

Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer by Russel Hoban – An infidelite (I made up that word but it should exist) sells his death to a sadistic billionaire. Weird! Dark! Obscene and disturbing! Like Ian McEwan if Ian McEwan didn't kinda suck.

The Mark of the Warrior by Paul Scott – An officer trains the younger brother of a soldier he lost in battle during WWII, contemplates the essential qualities of the warrior archetype, in this short novel by the author of the Raj Quartet. Scott was a great talent, with a distinct genius for illuminating the side corners of great human events. Good stuff.

Remake by Connie Willis – In a sci-fi Hollywood that never came to be (or hasn't yet), deep-fakes of old actors are digitized into new movies, and a hack editor falls in love with a would-be dancer. Both a prescient satire of the Hollywood machine and a clever whodunnit, my favorite thing I've read by Ms. Willis thus far. Weird and fun.

McGlue by Ottessa Moshefegh – A brain damaged alcoholic in 1851 tries to figure out if and why he murdered his best friend and lover. Lots of body horror and descriptions of the Dts. Skillfully written and deliberately horrid. I confess I don't really understand the literati's affection for repulsion, which seems not that difficult a reaction to evoke in a reader, but what do I know. At least it was short.

Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino – Some Calvino hits me and some don't, this was the latter.

The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville – A revolutionary struggles to survive in a ravaged Paris in which a supernatural Nazi plot has raised the devil and brought to life surrealist imagery of the age. I think probably my favorite thing I've read by Mieville. A fast paced, tightly written genre exercise full of fabulously weird visuals and free of any bloat (except to the epilogue which didn't really add anything.) Lots of fun.

The Parking Lot Attendant by Nafkote Tamirat – A second-generation Nigerian grows up in Boston, becomes embroiled with a charismatic conman. A solid and engaging examination of the immigrant experience—the depiction of Ayale, the eponymous attendant and all around hustler, was particularly strong, a character I feel like I've met a couple of times in real life but never saw so well illuminated in fiction. Good stuff.

Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim – A North Korean deep-cover spy operating in Seoul is given twenty-four hours to return to his homeland, comes to realize he's always been playing a role and so has everyone else in his life. There are a lot of books that try to do this sort of thing but not many I can remember doing it as well. Even in translation Kim is a strong writer, and has a rare talent for broader human examination without abandoning the genre tropes that give this story of story its structure.

The Deep by John Crowley – An alien amnesiac crash lands in a medieval world. In two hundred pages Crowley limns an epic fantasy then upend it. Fabulous stuff, Crowley (as I've mentioned earlier) is one of our best. Both this and the earlier Beast are fascinating in that they show his range as a writer, eschewing the pageantry of his later writing in favor of a style which seems boiled down to its barest essence, telling in a few pages what could plausibly be expanded to five or ten times its length. Excellent.

The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata – The adopted daughter of a kimono wholesaler meets her twin, searches for love. Didn't do it for me. Lots of descriptions of flowers and festivals about flowers.

A Way of Life Like Any Other by D'arcy O'Brien– The son of an ex-Western star and a mercilessly selfish dilettante grows up too quickly, learns to hate his parents. A very funny depiction of neglect. One of my new favorite books about my adopted homeland.

The Dying Gaul and Other Writings by David Jones – A rambling collection of essays by the author of In Parenthesis. I have no idea why I read this.

In Hazard by Richard Hughes – A merchant ship gets caught in a terrible storm, the crisis illuminating the characters of its diverse and peculiar crew. Disaster stories don't do a ton for me but Hughes utilizes the set-up for a fascinating series of digressions about the various shipmates, sketching their histories in vivid if brief detail, then wrapping the whole thing up in deceptively unsatisfying fashion. You can tell I liked it.

The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories by Yasunari Kawabata – Several lovely stories about youth, yearning, love and disappointment, and a bunch of strange, short parables. I was gearing up to not like this because the Old Capital wasn't really my jam but I was happily disappointed. These were varied and excellent.

Four Freedoms by John Crowley – The lives of a handful of idiosyncratic shop workers in an airplane factory during WWII. Crowley is a beautiful writer, the prose is a joy and it has a strangely effective eroticism. It didn't really seem to quite go anywhere, though.

The Flemish House by Georges Simenon – Obese, discourteous detective Maigret (I've gotten really good at coming up with two line descriptions of him after writing so many of these reviews) investigates a possible murder by a family of shady Belgian bourgeoisie. I've kinda come around on the Maigret stuff, they're breezy but also pitilessly mean.

Favorite Books of 2019

Another year in the books. You will forgive any lack of thoughtful ruminations on the passing of time, the death of youth, societal fragility, and grand struggles of the heart; I have a splitting headache. In 2019 I read 368 books, of which the arbitrary 10 follow.

Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White – A collection of misfits engage in spiritual warfare against the grinding forces of bigotry and human cruelty. Stunningly written, unique in scope and execution, a genuine masterpiece. I loved this fucking book.

During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase – The memories of a group of formidable, complex, troubled women in a small Midwestern town. Chase was a real marvel, a fabulous writer of prose with a keen insight into gender relations and the inexplicable ties of family.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood – A day in the life of a widowed homosexual college professor. Bittersweet, perfectly written, justly recognized as a classic.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe – Wolfe's death earlier this year deprived us of genre fiction's most frustrating and captivating author, evidence for which can be found in this suite of short stories, puzzle-box ruminations on the nature of humanity in a vastly foreign future.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – There are few things rarer or more valuable than a genuinely hopeful work of high art, and Marilynne Robinson's beautiful meditation on fatherhood, family, love, death, and God, was the single best thing that I read in 2019.

The Children Of Dynmouth by William Trevor – William Trevor was one of my best discoveries of 2019, a writer of formidable technique and wide imagination with an oeuvre of impressive depth, but this bleak but not hopeless depiction of a sociopathic youth in a small Irish town of hypocrites stands out.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf – The collapse of a family is told in Woolf's maddening, brilliant, oblique prose. If you didn't read this at at some point during your schooling, you should do yourself a favor and pick it up now.

Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban – A boy grows to manhood in post-apocalyptic England. A masterpiece of world-building, written in a bizarre but coherent future patois, a distinctly brilliant work of science fiction.

Silence by Shusaku Endo – A Portuguese Priest sneaks into a Tokugawa Japan, spreads the gospel, discovers uncomfortable complexities in his pursuit of righteousness. Subtle, thoughtful, excellent.

In Parenthesis by David Jones – An epic poem set in the trenches of WWI. The prose is luminous and alien, the sentiment penetrating and tragic, excellent stuff, if a little difficult.

Books And Tunes December 31st, 2019

I spent the end of December at London Christmas Markets, wandering briefly through New York, playing chess with my little brother, holding young children, and returning, finally, to the blissful warmth of Los Angeles. For those following along at home, this is not my end of year post, that comes tomorrow.

The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe – A detective tracks down a woman's husband, illuminates the limitations of identity, truth, and reality. Haruki Murakami very much read this book—if that sounds like a good thing to you, then you could do worse than give it a read. In fairness, it does seem to have come a rough half-century before the high point of esoteric pseudo-noir, in which style and mood are substituted for plot and narrative coherence, though frequent readers may recall that this is generally not my bag.

Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – An everyman coder finds himself working for the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy in this early urban fantasy/satire of scientific existence. Even the lesser works of the Strugatsky Brothers are kind of interesting simply by virtue of showcasing a form of foreign genre fiction—I'm going to bet this was a big influence on the Night Watch series—but it's basically altogether lacking in plot or conflict, and apart from a few fun asides probably isn't worth the time.

Nobody Move by Denis Johnson – A gambling addicted crooner shoots a guy, gets involved with a femme fatale, in this swiftly moving, admirably realized comic noir. It's not bad! It's not amazing! It's OK! OK is what's between not bad and not amazing!

The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer – A drunken, licentious stage magician struggles with the age old question of whether or not to sleep with a Shiksha. Well written line to line but taken altogether its a little bit half-baked.

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively—A woman watches her daughter's marriage collapse, remembers her own marriage doing the same, considers the eternal war between the sexes, makes her own contribution to the fight. Excellent. The writing and characterization are subtle but strong, and it's got a great sting. Good stuff.

A History of Warfare by John Keegan – While back in Baltimore over Christmas I broke out this classic of military theory, in which Keegan rebuts the Clausewitzian paradigm of war as a political activity, arguing instead that mass combat is best understood as an emanation of a particular culture and moment. Looking back in on it ten years after I read it last it pretty much stands up, and though I would quibble with a few of his examples I basically found the thesis compelling. Probably if you have any interest in this subject you've already read this book, but if not, maybe get on it.

The Recognitions by William Gaddis – Writing a review of Gaddis's 1000 page post-modernist ur-text – initially maligned by critics before ultimately going on to take a place in the modern canon – is a daunting prospect. William Gass, in the introduction, more or less accuses anyone not loving the book of being a philistine and probably an idiot. It is unquestionably a work of brilliance, an investigation of the nature of authenticity through the perspective of fraud in the world of high art. Apart from its linguistic complexity, Gaddis has a genius for a peculiar sort of world-building, in which themes and stylistic distinctions gradually accumulate to give weight to the whole. That said, and Mr. Gass's challenge not withstanding, I didn't particularly enjoy this book and probably wouldn't recommend it. Like a lot of writing of this sort the characterization is terribly flat, with characters operating more as stylistic flourishes than as fully rounded people. A lot of it amounts to an ill-tempered and ultimately exhausting skewering of the artistic and cultural elite, which, fair enough, who the fuck likes them assholes, but around the seventh parody of a Manhattan literary party one wanders if we haven't reached diminishing returns. In short, this is the sort of book which demands rereading but maybe doesn't actually warrant it, and while I admire Gaddis's intelligence I couldn't help but wish it was put to a less sterile end.

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester – A space-wrecked savage seeks vengeance on those who wronged him. Pleasantly bizarre, with a focus on economic and cultural exploitation which would go on to influence a lot of 80's sci-fi writers, but it's kind of incoherently structured and the narrative basically didn't function that well for me.

The Epic of Gilgamesh – Mankind's first hero learns to hate death. How does one review a foundational text of human civilization? It was not good as the Illiad. I tell you, if I was writing cuneiform in 2500 BC, I'd have done a fuckton better job. Lotta repetition, man, lotta repetition.