LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson and THE OUTLAW ALBUM by Daniel Woodrell

The literary barometers love Life After Life. Once again, I may be missing something. Here’s the conceit: What if you could keep coming back to life until you got it right? And so the protagonist dies over and over, and comes back again and again, until she does what you pretty much know she’s going to do from early on in the book. It’s very cleverly structured. A neat parlour trick. But the writing is pedestrian.

Daniel Woodrell is the freshest, darkest, most compelling voice I’ve read this year. He’s been around for a while, writing what he’s coined ‘country noir,’ but somehow I missed him until now. These stories, set in the Ozarks, knocked my socks off.

SWIMMING HOME by Deborah Levy

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Man, I must be missing something. Cliché language, cliché plot, cliché characters, drawn so thinly you don't care a wit about them. How many times do you want to read about the beautiful, ethereal, unstable poetess-wanna-be's copper-colored curls that cascade down her back?

THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme, HOPE: A TRAGEDY by Shalom Auslander, THE CAT'S TABLE by Michael Ondaatje, MYSTIC RIVER by Dennis Lehane, THE LEFTOVERS by Tom Perrotta...more

Derelict in the reading blog department. And now I've lost track of everything I've read since September, except what is still lying around at the foot of my bed. The whole point of this blog is to help me remember what I've read. Dammit, Gumby.

In reverse reading order, calling up what very little remains in the mental sieve, the foot of the bed books are:

THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme
Possibly the most disturbing novel I've ever read. I am pulled toward dark fiction, but this book--exquisitely written though it is--was so painful I found myself skimming over entire chunks of her poetic, evocative prose, and mining entire sections of her outside-the-lines narrative for plot only, so I could continue on and, um,  get thee behind me, Bone People. Hulme tells the story of of a sprite of a boy who is severely abused by people who nevertheless truly love him. No one comes out smelling good, but you empathize with all of them, and even like them. That's a hard thing to pull off. The book is masterful... but I'm glad I'm finished with it.

HOPE: A TRAGEDY by Shalom Auslander
I'm a fan of Auslander's. And it takes chutzpah to write a dark comedy with Ann Frank as the supporting actress. Problem is that the Frank character is fabulously annoying--intentionally so--and reading about her is kind of annoying, too, and the laughs didn't quite get off the page. The construct is good, the ideas are good, the book isn't my favorite of his.

MYSTIC RIVER by Dennis Lehane
A literary murder mystery, and poignant portrait of three men who were friends as boys. Beautifully done.

THE LEFTOVERS by Tom Perrotta
What sets Perrotta's novels apart from guilty pleasures, is that he can write. His books are compulsively engaging and well-crafted. He's good. I wish I could do what he does. When a new Perrotta comes out, I buy it. And choose it for a plane ride over the more hoity-toity lit I've also packed in my luggage. Does this sound snobbish? Guilty. But not because I'm reading Perrotta's latest. The Leftovers takes on The Rapture in suburbia--smart, funny, meaningful.

Also reread TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, reviewed elsewhere in this blog. Taught it again, read it again. Never get tired of it. Always find myself stopped in my tracks in various places, asking myself, "How does she do that?"

No doubt I've missed an armful of books I've read this fall and winter.

A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING by Dave Eggers

Nope. Not this time. Loved A HEARTBREAKING WORK..., WHAT IS THE WHAT. Liked ZEITOUN a lot. Am a fan of Eggers. But this one is a snoozer. Protagonist is in Saudi Arabia to pitch his IT company's services to the king. Each day he travels from Jeddah to a Pie-in the-Sky, partially built city of the future nearby, to make his presentation. Each day the king is a no-show. Wash, rinse, repeat, yawn. Like Groundhog Day, but not funny.

THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE by Nick Hornby, BROOKLYN by Colm Tóibín, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER by Junot Díaz, LP Colombia, LP Cambodia

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This month’s reading felt very male. XY.

THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE by Nick Hornby

A year of his columns from The Believer, chronicling a year of reading, and reviews of what he read. Chatty, funny, smart… bibliophilia without the pretension. A pleasure.

BROOKLYN by Colm Tóibín

What a disappointment. This book was recommended by so many people whose reading tastes I respect. Please tell me what I missed. A naïve Irish girl comes to the New World and becomes a New Yorker. Sweet and clear… but pretty much just a melody with no real harmony, undertones or any real surprises.

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER by Junot Díaz

Well, he’s got his voice back. I loved Drown, fell right into Díaz’ smartass characters and his smartass language. Waited for a follow-up, but Oscar Wao didn’t do it for me. The writing felt self-conscious, and I didn’t buy the teenage characters. (Job hazard for a middle school teacher?) This is How You Lose Her felt authentic, again. And I was hooked on getting a peek at the ‘sucio’s’ side. The writing in parts of this story collection is a little too True Confessions-esque, but most of it is raw and magnetic.

Lonely Planet Colombia

Lonely Planet Cambodia

Where to next?

THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR by Arthur Phillips, some of NERUDA, SELECTED POEMS, THE CORRESPONDENCE ARTIST by Barbara Browning, THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes, HOME by Toni Morrison

Not exactly a lost summer--more like a lost and happily found summer, but the usual time to read and write was in the lost column. Also lost: my mid-summer blog post, which I'd thought I'd uploaded, but is nowhere to be found, and that featured the stellar TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR, and a couple of other books I can't recall. I'll repost a dusty couple of sentences about the former, and let the latter go.

THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR by Arthur Phillips
Brilliant! Phillips manages to roast the cult of Shakespeare, while simultaneously honoring the guy. Rollicking, funny, fresh, wildly inventive, and just plain fun. Man, can this guy write. A brother and sister are in possession of a lost Shakespeare play. Or is it the work of their con artist father? This is one of those stellar reads that made me wonder why I ever try to write anything at all.

NERUDA: SELECTED POEMS
Yum. 'Nuff said.

THE CORRESPONDENCE ARTIST by Barbara Browning
After having spent several years with a Distant (sic) lover, flapping my digital wings with all my might to keep the shaky plane in the air, Browning's novel had particular resonance for me. The Correspondence Artist is an e-pistolary romance with a twist: the emails the protagonist sends are to four invented lovers, who form a composite of the one love whose name she dare not speak. With smart humor and in simple, direct language, the heroine tells her erotic story.

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes
Barnes writes an elegant sentence and a tightly constructed novel. His blue chip rep is deserved. But he's not a chick's writer--at least not this chick. The female lead in this spare novel could only have been dreamed up by a man, and there's something old boys' club about the texture of his writing.

HOME by Toni Morrison
A shell-shocked Korean War vet's love for his baby sister, set against a background of Southern racial politics. Touching and tender, a taut little read, but not star quality like some of her early works.

WE THE ANIMALS by Justin Torres; CONSIDER THE LOBSTER by David Foster Wallace

WE THE ANIMALS by Justin Torres

A taut, fast ride—crisply and finely written, especially when he keeps it simple—about three scrappy brothers from the wrong side of the tracks; the protagonist is the youngest brother. Rendered effectively as a series of linked short pieces, I found the first third or half or so stronger than what followed. Midway, it started feeling a little tired, repetitive; the movement, the change, the growth of the protagonist didn’t start to kick in until late in the slender book. Nevertheless, I think Torres is a new talent to watch. His writing and characters are full of compelling energy.

CONSIDER THE LOBSTER by David Foster Wallace

Sampling my way through these brilliant, dense, rich essays a few at a time. A worthwhile project.