This list is starting to get out of hand — I should really break it up by year or something. Till I get around to that, I’ll start adding dates. (I’m usually reading at least three things at once, and often forget to add things here, so they’re approximate at best.)

2008

• Underground, Murakami
• Inferno, Dante
• Purgatorio, Dante
• Pride and Prejudice, Austen
• Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, De Bernieres
• The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, De Bernieres
• The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, De Bernieres
• Atonement, McEwan
• A Hero of Our Time, Lermontov

2007

• Seabiscuit, Hillenbrand
• The Golden Notebook, Lessing
• England, England, Barnes
• Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami
• The Red Tent, Diamant
• Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut
• The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
• Quarantine, Crace
• Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Roald Dahl’s short stories
• Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy, Ruff
• A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Akcam
• The Expectant Father, Brott
• The Book of Dave, Self

(capsule reviews of those coming. eventually. maybe.)

Troubles, Farrell

Wins the prize for this year’s “favorite book I’d never heard of before I picked it up.” Dry to the point of snapping; fascinating.

Against the Day, Pynchon

Hooray for mathematicians in literature! Hooray for sprawling, 300-character novels! Hooray for Pynchon!

Dress Your Children in Corduroy and Denim, Sedaris

I keep trying, but he keeps failing me.

Son of a Witch, Maguire

Not nearly as interesting as Wicked.

Wicked, Maguire

I didn’t expect any content beyond the fairy-tale, so it took me half the book to realize that I was being asked to think. Should go back and re-read it from the beginning with that in mind.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Pessl

I haven’t been so annoyed by a book in years. A struggle to make it to page 100.

My Life as a Fake, Carey

After finishing this, I thought it cemented Carey as a creative genius. Turns out the outline of the story is true. So I’ll have to point to something else as cementing Carey as a creative genius.

The Magician’s Assistant, Patchett

Just can’t get enough of Ann Patchett.

Arthur and George, Barnes

I was 200 pages in before it occurred to me to wonder at what an amazing sort of novel this was.

Lush Life, Hajdu

Utterly engaging, considering that I had no idea who Billy Strayhorn was before picking this up, nor any reason to care. (And I’m not just saying that because David and I were new faculty together.)

Shadow & Claw, Sword & Citadel, Wolfe

Fun science fiction fantasy alternate-reality fiction. The most brain-stretching thing(s) I’ve read recently.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer

Damn, boy can write. Pyrotechnics all over the place, and still touching.

2006

Veronica, Gaitskill

The language is almost too gorgeous. I felt it getting in the way of understanding.

The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky

Life’s too short.

Pastoralia, Saunders

Didn’t like it as much as CivilWarLand. Next on the Saunders agenda: In Persuasion Nation. (12 December)

The Brothers K, Duncan

A fantastic novel. Why had I missed it up to now? (9 December)

The Shadow of the Wind, Zafon

Beach reading in December — ridiculously overwritten, but engaging enough not to matter. Plus, Barcelona! (23 November)

A Bend in the River, Naipaul

I keep thinking that if I read just one more, Naipaul will really speak to me. I must be just outside his target audience. (21 November)

Black Swan Green, Mitchell

Not up to the awesomenesses that are Number9Dream and Cloud Atlas, but well worth reading nonetheless.

• CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Saunders
• Happyland, Lennon
• Number9Dream, Mitchell
• Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Latham
• The Big Over Easy, Fforde
• The Amber Spyglass, Pullman
• Salt, Kurlansky
• The Golden Compass, Pullman
• The Subtle Knife, Pullman
• Proust. (slow and steady wins the … oh, never mind.)
• Claudius the God, Graves
• I, Claudius, Graves
• Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild Wild Surf, Bennett (via MetaFilter)
• The Phantom Tollbooth, Juster
• The Coxeter Legacy, various
• Cat’s Eye, Atwood
• The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas
• The Planets, Sobel
• Europe Central, Vollman
• Atlas Shrugged, Rand (Took time off from a long novel to reread a medium-long one.)
• The Westing Game, Raskin
• The Conversions, Mathews
• Consider the Lobster, Wallace
• The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Saunders
• Something Rotten, Fforde
• The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis (in what’s apparently now the ‘correct’ order, which I didn’t like at all)
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Eco
• Andrew Huff and the Pool of Lost Souls, Alex Golub (This is almost certainly the only novel that will ever feature me as a character. Lucky for me it’s a damn fun novel.)
• The Decameron, Boccaccio
• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Adams
• The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Adams
• The Final Solution, Chabon

2005-ish

• Drop City, T.C. Boyle
• Kant and the Platypus, Eco (didn’t even make it 25 pages into this)
• The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Potocki [this is awesome; thanks, Steve]
• Saunders Mac Lane: A Mathematical Autobiography
• The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career, Goldsmith, Komlos, and Gold [this was unbearably dull, and I never finished]
• The Well of Lost Plots, Fforde
• Double, Saramago
• The Tipping Point, Gladwell
• Blink, Gladwell
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Rowling
• The Power that Preserves, Donaldson
• The Illearth War, Donaldson
• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Doctorow
• Lord Foul’s Bane, Donaldson (I seem to be on a SF kick)
• Lost in a Good Book, Fforde
• To Sail Beyond The Sunset, Heinlein
• Number of the Beast, Heinlein
• Time Enough for Love, Heinlein (I seem to be on a Heinlein kick)
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein
• Methuselah’s Children, Heinlein
• The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Heinlein
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Adams
• A Spectacle of Corruption, Liss
• Ghostwritten, Mitchell
• Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein (audiobook)
• Obsessive Genius, Goldsmith
• The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker (again)
• The Eyre Affair, Fforde
• Oblivion, David Foster Wallace
• The Nazarene, Scholem Asch
• Swami and Friends, R.K. Narayan
• John Adams, David McCullough
• Kafka on the Shore, Murakami
• The Baroque Cycle, Stephenson
• Zodiac, Stephenson
• Mathematics and Sex, Cresswell (Oh My God I hated this book)
• The Namesake, Lahiri
• The Coffee Trader, Liss
• A Conspiracy of Paper, Liss
• The Dante Club, Pearl (hated this one too)
• White Teeth, Smith
• The Book of Ten Nights and a Night, Barth (I’m just about done with John Barth if this is the sort of thing he’s going to write now)
• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Clarke (loved this)
• The Know-It-All, Jacobs
• The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett

Rescued from the old log (8 July 03)

My mother writes to say that she misses the “currently reading” featurette in the sidebar. Sidebar? O that. It does seem that most of the appurtenances that made this here .org interesting or personal has been let slide — or been savagely done in — in recent months. I’ve got no explanation for that, save the usual suspects: fatigue, ennui, distraction. Per the specific maternal request, however, I disclose herewith the reading matter with which I’ve communed over the last six months (minus the math books, which are, face it, out of your price range), together with capsule reviews and the familiar array of stars, ranging in number from one to five.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385722435/leuschkeorg-20”>Ella Minnow Pea</a>, by Mark Dunn, 5

Sparkling and witty. Recommended.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375413901/leuschkeorg-20”>After the Quake</a>, by Haruki Murakami, 3.5

Murakami’s stories are beginning to slide off me as if they were marinated in sesame oil. They leave no marks. I have memories of enjoying this book, of wishing it went by less quickly, of small leaps of joy at this phrase or that, but no recollection of the stories themselves. Odd. This seems to me somehow specifically Japanese, though I couldn’t say why.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0151006903/leuschkeorg-20”>Baudolino</a>, by Umberto Eco, 2.5

There are some authors who have me by the throat: I’ll buy any scrap they care to publish, just as I’ll buy a ten-hour recording of Richard Buckner groaning on the crapper. Eco is even more: all a publisher has to do is put “reminiscent of Eco, DFW, and Borges” to get me to buy the thing. But if he keeps writing predictable, muddled stuff like this, I’m going to get cranky with him.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140186832/leuschkeorg-20”>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</a>, by James Joyce, 3

I should have read this in college when everyone else did. The speech at the end did give me chills, but I came back to cynicism too quickly.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679722769/leuschkeorg-20”>Ulysses</a>, by James Joyce, 5

The Right Way To Read Ulysses: First read the Portrait, which is easy and fun (see above). Then flounder your way through as much of Finnegans Wake as you can. Then pick up <a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394700139/leuschkeorg-20”>James Joyce’s Ulysses</a>, by Stuart Gilbert (5, well worth reading even if you have no desire to read Ulysses). Now you’re warmed up, prepared, and know a little something about one aspect of the book. Keep a pad nearby to write down the particularly funny bits and astonishing turns of phrase. It really is a masterpiece, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140188592/leuschkeorg-20”>Gravity’s Rainbow</a>, by Thomas Pynchon, 4

<a href=“http://www.snarkout.org/year/archives/00000067.html” title=“snarkout”>Steve</a> and <a href=“http://lancelot.uchicago.edu/log/archives/2002_09.html#000114” title=“golublog”>Alex</a> have covered this one. Astonishingly beautiful language.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060930217/leuschkeorg-20”>V.</a>, by Thomas Pynchon, 4

Run-through number 3 on this one, and I understand a little more each time. The African section always confuses me, though.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375726217/leuschkeorg-20”>Double Fold</a>, by Nicholson Baker, 3

Infuriating. He’s right — we all admit he’s right. He’s got the truth on his side, as well as foresightedness, humor (though that vanishes quickly), and the double-barrel attack of both reason and emotion. Why, then, is it so damn dull? Rants are tiresome. I have high hopes for <a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375502874/leuschkeorg-20”>A Box of Matches</a>, a return to the observational style of <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679725768/leuschkeorg-20”>The Mezzanine</a> and <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679734406/leuschkeorg-20”>Room Temperature</a>. Not to say Nick is a one-trick pony, but we’re allowed to prefer one trick above others, right?

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743241754/leuschkeorg-20”>The Devil’s Details

A History of Footnotes</a>, by Chuck Zerby, 1.5:A slight book with an even slighter excuse for existing. I should have read <a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674307607/leuschkeorg-20”>The Footnote: A Curious History</a>, by Anthony Grafton — it’s where Zerby gets most of his worthwhile information anyway. An extra half-star for his apparent love for his subject.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400033543/leuschkeorg-20”>You Shall Know Our Velocity!</a>, by Dave Eggers (or just “Dave”, if he prefers). 2

I bought this at <a href=“http://www.moesbooks.com/” title=“fine books for forty years”>Moe’s</a> in Berkeley. I’ll keep it as a memento, and maybe a doorstop. Also, the paperback edition drops one of the most worthwhile aspects of the book: the pre-prologue on the front cover.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140077022/leuschkeorg-20”>White Noise</a>, by Don DeLillo, 5

He nails it. Everything. Nailed.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156027321/leuschkeorg-20”>Life of Pi</a>, by Yann Martel, 4

Original and well done. Deserving. (<a href=“http://books.guardian.co.uk/bookerprize2002/story/0,12350,836092,00.html” title=“link to guardian.co.uk”>Hmmm.</a>)

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316769517/leuschkeorg-20”>Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour

An Introduction</a>, by J. D. Salinger, 4.5:How did I avoid Salinger this long? What am I missing in these stories? Why do I feel empty inside after reading them? Where does my enjoyment come from, when it’s so clear I don’t get it? These and other questions.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060529709/leuschkeorg-20”>Everything is Illuminated</a>, by Jonathon Safran Foer, 3.5

Punk-ass little punk. It galls to admit that the ending forced lumpy-throat syndrome in this reader; I was doing so well disliking him, and his book, till then. </grumpy>

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567920888/leuschkeorg-20”>53 Days</a>, by Georges Perec, et al, 3

A half-finished book (Perec died in the middle) consisting of three concentric novels. What could be more fascinating? The second half consists of his notebooks: false starts, working-throughs, Fibonacci correlations (!), questions, rephrasings, answers, denials, and repetitions, edited by Harry Mathews. Awesome, though a bit thin to justify spending money on.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802139671/leuschkeorg-20”>In the Shape of a Boar</a>, by Lawrence Norfolk, 5+

I occasionally finish a book and think, “I need to read this again — now.” I’ve never before had that thought multiple times before I finish the book. Absolutely stunning. Six or seven stars would not be out of line.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/043935806X/leuschkeorg-20”>Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix</a>, by J.K. Rowling, 5

Better paced than the last couple, and well spun. I’m a fan.

<a title=“link to amazon.com” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393323579/leuschkeorg-20”>Servants of the Map</a>, by Andrea Barrett, 5

The threads tying these stories together are, depending on the angle you stand to them, gossamer webs or hawsers. Each is brilliant and pure; the collection is perfect.

Rescued from the old log (25 June 2001)

An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth

Vikram Seth, of course, wrote A Suitable Boy, which is one of the best investments of six weeks you’ll ever make. His second novel (I think it’s his second, though he has at least one volume of poetry as well) is less than that one, but this is no surprise. ASB was the whole of a subcontinent, a snapshot of India in its adolescence, fighting, loving, eating, believing, doubting. (Which one am I reviewing again? Oh yeah.) An Equal Music has one of the least appealing narrators I’ve ever seen, but by the time I realized that, Seth had me trusting him. I may never forgive him for that, though I must respect it. Ditto the descriptions of what it means to be a musician. When I was reading this, I was coming off reading The Wild Numbers. I almost wish that this were the novel about mathematicians - when I came away, I felt that I had some intimate knowledge of the internal lives of musicians, and an empathy for what that means. Whether I did or not is of course anyone’s guess, but it’s the kind of thing I would want for a novel about mathematics.

Rescued from the old log (25 August 2001)

Recently read: Anil’s Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje. I greatly enjoyed Ondaatje’s novel In the Skin of a Lion and memoir Running in the Family, though I didn’t really get The English Patient until I saw the movie. RitF, in particular, gave him a concrete subject to work with (I often lose him in the swirls of language - not a bad thing, just a thing), and was set mostly in his homeland of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), which was fascinating. His most recent novel is also set in Sri Lanka, and also has a concrete subject: the harrowing civil war that has gripped the country for two decades. The themes are darker than Rit F, and Ondaatje seemed to turn the voltage down on his language out of respect. I was correspondingly less happy with it.

Recently read: The Floating Opera and The End of the Road, by John Barth. I hadn’t read this for years, but rereading LETTERS had reminded me of Barth’s monumental studliness, so I just had to keep rereading, starting at the beginning. FO and EotR are Barth’s first two novels, “companion pieces”, “a nihilistic comedy and a nihilistic tragedy.” The bad news is that I’d forgotten (if I’d ever realized it) that these just aren’t very good books. Yes, there are flashes of what was coming in Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy, but basically these are dull, pretentious books written by a very young man (my age!). The problem may be their ages; neither of them is what you might a timeless story. On the other hand, it may just be that Barth was working too hard. In any case, I won’t stop my revisit of Barth with these two - that would be a disservice.

Recently read: Selected Letters 1940–1977, by Vladimir Nabokov. I couldn’t stop reading this. Dip in anywhere: a love letter to his wife during a separation (“The eastern side of every minute of mine is already colored by the light of our impending meeting”); a sales pitch to a publisher (“What I am offering you is a character entirely new to literature [Pnin] - a character important and deeply pathetic - and new characters in literature are not born every day.”); corrections to a book design (“…turning to the title-page butterfly, its head is that of a small tortoise…”). The saga of Lolita’s birth and early life is fascinating, and a real bonus is the inclusion of many letters written by Nabokov’s wife, Vera, above his signature. I’ve had this book on my shelves for years, moved it three times, never opened it. What an idiot am I.

Rescued from the old log (14 November 2001)

recently read: Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres. I seem to recall that there was a movie made of this not too long ago. I missed it; didn’t seem to stick around long. That’s not terribly surprising, since this is, I think, a more or less unfilmable book. How would you capture the black humor, which draws its strength from the despicable acts that surround it? How would you keep the constant allusions to The Odyssey without driving them into the ground? The characters live in worlds made of words; how could you transpose the letters they write, the chapters from books they write, the pamphlets and speeches, into images? This is one I’ll keep around.

recently read: Nabokov: His Life in Art by Andrew Field. A masterful piece of brown-nosing. Field was the only biographer that Nabokov allowed access in the sixties, and he knew which side his bread was buttered on. This is one of half-a-dozen books of biography and criticism that Field published (this one’s actually out of print, I found it used several years ago). VN’s <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0156936100” title=“I read them over the summer”>letters</a> are full of complaints about Field’s unacceptable Russian, his illiteracy, and his intrusiveness. VN read drafts of every one of Field’s books up to his death in 1977. At the time of this book (1967), they were still on cordial terms (not surprising, considering that Field does everything but kneel and worship VN), but by 1973, the tone is curt:

<blockquote>

Although you did take into account a number of the objections I made in the spring of this year when revising the first edition of your NHILIP [Nabokov: His Life in Part], I see that you have ignored quite a few errors of fact and tact which I had corrected. […] The style and tone of your work are beyond redemption, but if you wish to publish it at all you must accept all the deletions and corrections in the present list. […] I am rather puzzled by finding here and there in the chitchat phrases and terms neither my wife nor I ever use. (All the farcical germanic “Akhhs…!!!” with which you introduce the speeches of your Russian characters must go, of course.)

</blockquote>

Sorry, sometimes I just can’t stop quoting old VN. In any case, the only reasons to read this book is to get some idea which of VN’s short stories are better than others without reading them all (an endeavor which is taking me the better part of three months), or if you want to take lessons in butt-kissing and the class at the Y is full.

Rescued from the old log (20 January 2002)

recently read: Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t know how old I was when my mom read this to me - we still lived in Alabama, clearly (your condolences are accepted), because by the time we left I was able to stay up later than she was. I remember getting out of bed and taking The Hobbit out of her hands to finish the chapter before waking her up and sending her off to her end of the house. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

However old I was, I must have been deep in my so-called “formative years”. I couldn’t turn two pages of AWiT without rediscovering a lesson from my childhood. Relative importance of looks vs. intelligence: p.46. Authority should be questioned: p.54. Evil of unconsidered conformity: p.61. Magic adds depth to life: passim. Importance of family; honesty; wonder; joy; reading; even mathematics: you get the idea. What pleasure, then, to revisit these pages, twenty years later. The story is still magical, the characters are still deftly drawn and memorable, and the Mrs.es Whatsit, Who, and Which still hold the mind’s eye (or ear?). [Minor disappointment: I thought this was the one with mitochondria and farandolae - I guess I’ll have to track down A Wind in the Door. Oh, and kything! Which one has kything? Better get all the others.]

recently read: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Ah, who am I kidding. There’s no reason for you to read anything I have to say about these. Suffice to say: they’re still just as good as they were back when Mom used to read them to me until she fell asleep, they still absorb the attention, still take over the mental landscape, still fascinate, draw in, and satisfy. I did notice a few things I’d missed before (the willful omission of women, the episodic format as opposed to a classical story-arc and the similarity of this to the experience of WWI, the pride in his creation that Tolkien couldn’t keep out of his voice, etc.), but who cares. It’s just a damn good story, people.

Hey! I know I’ve probably lost some of you with all the above (who cares what I think about some children’s books), but hey! Come back! There’s something here worth thinking about. I’m a damn good reader; I’m an even better skimmer. I can get the sense out of a paragraph by reading no more than half the words, and I can do it faster than almost anyone I know. I’m (justifiably, I think) proud of this - it’s what I would call one of my best talents. Of course, it has its drawbacks. I think this is why I’m no good at reading poetry: if you only read half the words in a poem, you should have spent the time shining your shoes instead, because you got zilch out of it. It also means that I can finish a book (in minutes flat) and, a year later, have only the dimmest memories of it. That’s okay by me - I like rereading books.

So there I was, merrily zipping my way through book after book, when:

recently read: V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas. This book forced me to read it slowly. It gently, quietly, almost when I wasn’t looking, built up a complete world, interwoven with reference and family. The interminable humiliation of Mr Biswas, his struggles for a place of his own in the world, would not be skimmed. Opening the covers released the smell of sugar-cane fields, the damp heat of the languid afternoons of Trinidad. It would not be read with haste. I’m so grateful.

Rescued from the old log (23 March 2002)

Updated the reading list in the left sidebar. It got a little out of date there for a while, mostly because I was spending more time reading childrens’ books than worrying about letting you know what I was reading. I read all the <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0848002393”>Prydain Chronicles</a>, which are about as good as I remember - they’re essentially the same story as the <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0618002251/”>Lord of the Rings</a>, set in an imaginary Wales and pitched at grade-school kids. I kept thinking, “Lloyd, dude, give us a little backstory, wouldja? You’re skipping over like 300 pages of history there.” We get spoiled so easily.

Reading that series, especially on the heels of LotR, stirred up memories of being read to as a child (and even later, to the point where my mother would fall asleep before I would and I’d have to go get the book to finish the chapter before sending her off to bed). One of my favorites from that time, and a natural segue from the Prydain Chronicles, was <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0141310685”>Westmark</a>. Count Las Bombas, Mickle, and Theo are marvelous characters - everyone should read these books at least once. They’re aimed a little higher - more like junior-high reading level. Infuriatingly, the second book of the trilogy, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0141310693/”>The Kestrel</a>, is out of print until June, so I had no choice but to go on and read the third book, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0440905486/”>The Beggar Queen</a>. Wonderful.

I don’t want you to think that I spend all my time reading kidlit; there’s also <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0679729917/”>The Best of Roald Dahl</a>, who, come to think of it, I first read as a kid. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is just as fantastic as it was then. There was also <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0679722629/”>The Glass Key</a>, which strangely enough is the most “adult” of anything I’ve read lately, but also the most simplistic in its language. The terse descriptions are crystalline: in the first fifty pages, various people’s eyes are described as friendly, clear, inquisitive, gleaming, bloodshot, glowing, twinkling, blurred, muddy, faded, stony, dark, angry, china-blue, bright, dim, opaque, clear, sharp, level, malicious, watchful, and glittering. The psychological warfare between the characters seeped its way into my dreams, especially after I realized that this book must have been the basis for <a href=“http://us.imdb.com/Title?0100150” title=“long live the Coen brothers”>Miller’s Crossing</a>, my all-time favorite film and occasion of the best drinking game ever: match Ned Beaumont rye for rye and see if you can make it to the third scene.

(Side note: I now have a new all-time favorite line from any book, thanks to The Glass Key: “Aw, nurts!”)

I’m still dipping into <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/1887123288”>The Book of the Book</a> occasionally, and getting lots of notes for future blog entries (see how I look out for you people?), just started <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/067946333X/”>the new Rushdie</a>, and I’m thinking of taking on <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0141181265/”>serious project</a>. We’ll see how the semester goes.

Rescued from the old log (various dates, pre-2002)

It’s an unfortunate corollary of the unidirectionality of time, and of the nature of speed, that the more I enjoy a book, the less time it is likely to spend on the sidebar. For example, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375726055/leuschkeorg-20/”> Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart</a> lasted scarcely ten days. What a beautiful book, though. Nobody understands alienation, division, loneliness, and love quite like Murakami, and nobody but him makes them a joy to read. Go get it.

Also making a limited-time appearance in the sidebar will be <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452282152/leuschkeorg-20/”>Girl with a Pearl Earring</a>, added today. I can’t stop reading it. Yum.

recently read: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins. There are certain authors who keep writing the same book over and over. In general, this just wears me out. I mean, come on, John Irving, give me something, anything other than more rapes and young men “educated” by older women. Clancys and Grishams seem to roll off an assembly line with the uniformity (and musclebound impotence) of 2001 Mustangs. Then there’s Tom Robbins. Somehow, it’s okay when he does it. He’s the only author I know of who can plausibly maintain the position that the world would be a much better place if we’d all just listen to our crotches. And this one’s just the same, and it’s just as entertaining as ever. The best part is, you get to choose whether to take it seriously or not (depending on whether you’re in high school or not, as a rule). Me, I’ll call it brain candy, and always hold out my hand for more.

<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316776963/leuschkeorg-20/”>Me Talk Pretty One Day</a>: Being gay and insecure is not automatically funny.

review: <a href = “http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/aSIN/0452282470/qid=992981447/sr=1-2/ref=sc_b_2/102-9248908-0559368”>The Wild Numbers</a>, by Philibert Schogt. The cover blurb by Amit D. Aczel, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, enthuses, “I have never read a better fictional description of what it’s like to work in pure math.” Well, that may be so. I suppose I haven’t either. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a very good description, though. The problem may be that a more accurate picture of a working mathematician would be like an accurate picture of a working accountant, only less interesting. A novel about a chess player would be pretty dull if he weren’t straddling the fence of sanity, if he won some games and lost some and was fairly well established in the community and had a fulfilling home life, if he were like other people except that he happened to play chess. There’s got to be something else. And, I guess, that’s the way it goes. Schogt has written a decent book about people whose interior lives are, almost by definition, incomprehensible to many people, and that’s a good thing. He has done a good job of inventing details that are close to the truth without stepping into contradictability. I may even send it to my mother in one more attempt to explain to her what I do. But please don’t ask me to accept this book as a description of my life.

<strike>recently read</strike> finally finished: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. I know you’re tired of hearing about this; trust me, I know. Well, this is a welcome day for us both, then. With one great final push, I read three stories yesterday, the final quarter of the fifth Nabokovian “dozen”.

It pains me to complain so much, so often, so … ungratefully, about these stories. It’s just rude, and I’m surprised no one’s called me on it yet. So what I’ll do today is pick out a few of my favorites (Nabokov was famously prickly about copyright, so none of them appear online - links are to reviews).

I had here micro-reviews, but they kept reading like sixth-grade book reports, so away they went. Content yourself with titles (mouse over for micro-mini-extra-small-caspule reviews): <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-005.htm” title=“tortured maestro, recalls The Defense”>Bachmann</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-008.htm” title=“recomposing a life by reliving it”>The Return of Chorb</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-011.htm” title=“a set piece that spoke directly to me, putting my dreams on the page”>Terror</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-014.htm” title=“my favorite of the Russian-culture stories”>An Affair of Honor</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-015.htm” title=“delicate story of a dwarf, acknowledged genius”>The Potato Elf</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-027.htm” title=“gimmicky (though not so bad as The Vane Sisters), but VN’s at his best writing about writing”>The Admiralty Spire</a>; <a href=“http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/nab-038.htm” title=“Later, when VN was obsessing beautifully about Stalin, doppelgangers and dreams”>Tyrants Destroyed</a>.

Two others that I can’t even find reviews for: Ultima Thule and Solus Rex. These were to be the first two chapters of VN’s last Russian novel, which was scrapped (but pieces of which live on in Bend Sinister and Pale Fire. Phantasmagorical and lyric..

The rest? Hm. Well, I’m glad I read them. I wish I weren’t so linear - they were really meant to be dipped into. Back on the shelf they go, but I’ll leave the spine hanging an inch or so over the edge, and perhaps the next time I troll the titles for something to read in those twenty minutes between bed and sleep, they’ll slip out into my hand and the god of random pagenumbers, merciful of my impertinence, will select a delicious little story for me.