August 11, 2008
dear clusterflock
What are you reading?
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comments:
- Deron Bauman: It’s a start.
- Joel Bernstein: The first of many things, no doubt.
- Deron Bauman: I’ll pick him up at eight. He may not like the way I smell.
- Michael Smith: Joel’s Dream Date: Phantom Menace; Cat urine cologne; Deron.
- Joel Bernstein: For the record, if you pay to see this, you are no longer my friend.
- Deron Bauman: Meow.
- Joel Bernstein: This must be why I fuck so many cats.
- Michael Smith: Seems to me the experiment almost does itself.
- Casey Cichowicz: No. It is not possible. I can assure you.
- Joel Bernstein: Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes?
- LaurenH: I’m with those who say get that girl out of that household. The father has now very effectively...
- Rick Neece: Holee sh..!
- Rick Neece: Asian calligraphy, ‘cept instead of a brush, hot glass. The image of her controlling the glass and...
- Rick Neece: For the gull-wing, I’m sure it would knock me in the chin every time I opened it.
- Marco: Oh god yes.
Jonathan Lethem – The Fortress of Solitude
Annie Proulx’s Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories, which was published in 2004. I have to say, her recent stories in the New Yorker are far better. It’s interesting to read someone’s older work and see how she has developed stylistically.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
It’s good enough to throw me on tilt sometimes.
Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds.
Third time that I’m reading that book. That’s because I haven’t been able to get his two latest books, House of Suns and The Prefect.
Also, I’m reading Misspent Youth by Peter Hamilton, Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card and Return to Mars by Ben Bova.
Alice Munro – Runaway, just finished Moons of Jupiter.
Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections.
Y: The Last Man Part 10: Whys and Wherefores
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
I’ve been reading the Haddawy translation of The Arabian Nights though I’m getting bored with the later part of the book and may not read it all. That said, much of what goes on here is marvelous. I’ve been working my way through the new Oxford translation of Cavafy’s poems (with Warner’s versions of Seferis to follow) and have just begun a mystery by Peter Tremayne, Valley of the Shadow, to be followed by Trollope’s The Warden.
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
And Amanda, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish The Corrections. I want to know what happens to everyone, I just couldn’t deal with the prose. I hope you have a more enjoyable time with it.
Philip Kerr – Dark Matter: The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton
Harvey Karp–The Happiest Baby on the Block
Apparently, the key goal of parenthood is to keep your child asleep at all costs.
Patrick, I am only halfway through, and find myself oddly engaged. It’s becoming my “treat” book. I climb into bed, read whatever book I’m reading until I’m too sleepy, look over and see the Corrections and stay up a bit longer.
Maybe it’s just me, but Infinite Jest took about 40 pages and I had to put it down, too… too. Maybe in a month or two.
Vin, does this mean you’re expecting?
just now picked up The Fermata at the library…
Good for you, Omsbuddy. It’s a delightful book.
I’m not clusterflock, per se… but I’ve been reading this blog for a while now and feel as if I should move from passive participant to active author.
I just finished Pyongyang by Guy Delisle, which I thoroughly recommend (if you like graphic novels). Haven’t picked out my next book yet, so I’m carrying around this quarter’s Cabinet instead.
PS. Anyone else read the Y series that rabbitsnake mentioned? It’s very interesting…
Kelsey, I’d say you’re clusterflock.
Casualty figures by Michele Barrett.
I’ve just read the Regeneration trilogy, well worth the effort.
I’m reading Quinnehtukqut, a novel by Joshua Harmon. Another fine offering from Starcherone Books. This is an experimental novel that presents bits of history in little flashes and from a number of perspectives. So far (I’m about 1/3 of the way through it ) I love the strange and huge sadness of it; Harmon knows how to not get in the way as fragments begin to glance and ping off of other fragments in a way that–almost unexpectedly–generates a real sense of a lived world. I find myself being reminded of works such as: E. Annie Proulx’s novel Postcards; Bernard Pomerance’s We Need To Dream All This Again; Ron Hansen’s remarkable short story “Wickedness” (about the effects of a great blizzard in the mid-west in the late 19th century); and Lynn Kozlowski’s wonderful collections of very short fictions–Historical Markers, many of which first appeared in elimae, to be later gathered into a book done by Ravenna Press. So–I recommend all of these works.
Omsbuddy: glad to see you went for The Fermata it’s wonderfully crazy.
Range: you mentioned Orson Scot Card, so I imagine you have read Ender’s Game. Great book, don’t you think? I read it way back and recently picked up a used copy to read again. Also, I like a number of S.M. Stirling’s novels, although a sense of formula can sometimes set in. But much fun to read.
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State by Randolph Campbell
Polson-Brittain-Marshall :The Disposal Of The Dead. Published by the Philosophical Library. Working on James Lees Milne 12 vls. Diaries, and for lighter fare John Collier’s: Fancies and Goodnightd
also not clusterflock but answering anyway:
- “Bonk” by Mary Roach, a fascinating and cheeky tour of scientific attempts to study sex
- “My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro” by Jeffrey Eugenides
- “Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design” by Danielle LaPorte and Carrie McCarthy, a strange workbook that guides you to arrive at a 2-word definition of your personal style
- “Make It Bigger,” part memoir and part graphic design manifesto, by the inimitable Paula Scher
Moby Dick. Apparently for me, it’s an excellent beach read.
for the record, dear clusterflock is for anyone who reads the site / cares to participate.
for the record, clusterflock is for anyone who reads the site / cares to participate.
can you believe nobody’s yet registered flustercock.com?
I have registered it in my mind. (Only as flustercock.org.)