[ g h o s t s o f b e r l i n ]
Brian Ladd does an amazing job of tying together Berlin's history, architecture and the arguments that have engulfed and paralyzed both.
.
[c h o k e ]
I'll never understand how Chuck Palahnium can take the same cast, dysfunctions and settings and come up with such high-speed novels. His strongest since Fight Club.
.
[ t h e c a r t h i e f ]
Finally a book where the protagonist doesn't bemoan the hand he's dealt. Theodore Weesner's adolescent lead methodically works through the problems of an alcoholic -- but loving -- father and a mother who would rather not be.
.
[ b l a c k h a w k d o w n ]
Sometimes it's nice to just sit back, read and get your heart going while giving your brain a rest. Mark Bowden non-fiction shows a Somalian event where we learned little from Viet Nam while illustrating what we might be doing in Afghanistan. Yeah, I'll see the movie.
.
[ f a s e r l a n d ]
In Christian Kracht, Germans have discovered their Bret Easton Ellis -- fatuous Germans marvel at their family money and big city nightlife. It's in German.
.
[ k a r o o ]
I'm still disappointed that Steve Tesich wasted his ability on a character like Saul Karoo rather than giving us a readable novel. Self-destructive middle-aged script doctor tries to do right but not even fate will let him. Right.
.
[ h o u d i n i g i r l ]
Martyn Bedford's penned a noir romance about Red the magician losing the girl of his dreams to a train wreck. It's tough to decide which is more expertly developed -- the characters or the plot.
.
[ t h e r e a d e r ]
Bernhard Schlink's solid book about a love affair in Nazi Germany that does an even better job illustrating what the country's baby boomers think about that war. Don't ask why I didn't read it in the original German.
.
[ t h e g r i f t e r s ]
Jim Thompson's skill is in humanizing cliche characters which then give depth to simplistic, criminal story lines. And he doesn't believe in a happy end.
.
[ h e a d l o n g ]
A well-written and funny book about how timeless art affects, and is affected by, the present. Michael Frayn could have spared a bunch of the detail to keep the plot moving.
.
[ a t o m i s e d ]
Michel Houellebecq needs to decide whether he wants to be an author or a philospher because, as it stands, he isn't very good at either. His characters' monologues and their lack of introspection create an empty, misogynistic 384 pages. OK -- I didn't finish the last 50 (and may never).
.
[ m e t a l k p r e t t y o n e d a y ]
David Sedaris' look at his family is hilarious. No wonder he turned out to be a genius. But his bits about being an ex-pat just seem shockingly naive and slightly bitchy.
.
[ h e r e w e a r e i n p a r a d i s e ]
All the quirk of '80s short stories with the depth they lacked. Tony Earley's book starts in the present but ends in the past. Nice.
.
[ c a r c a m p i n g ]
Mark Sundeen's book about cruising around the Southwest in a tan Subaru existing, rafting and laying the occasional water main. Loved it.
.
[ i n v i s i b l e m o n s t e r s ]
The hope of self destruction is that, in the end, you won't be you anymore. But as Chuck Palahniuk points out in his third novel, not only will you find yourself at the end of that rainbow, but everyone else too. Chuck's weakest book but if you can survive the first 250 pages, it gets good.
.
[ l o v e i n v e n t s u s ]
Amy Bloom had an exceptional female coming of age novel until it deteriorated into unneccessary child deaths, holocaust pasts and an inability of any character to move forward. Love may be the driving force of life but it can't always be sustenance, even in literature.
.
[ t h e t r i b e s o f p a l o s v e r d e s ]
Joy Nicholson's solid novel about a surfer girl growing up in the dissociative Los Angeles suburbs. The effects of parents leaving coupled with the troubles of finding your way on the cliffs to the surf. A nice plot twist or two too. File under contemporary LA lit. I'll write a thesis some day.
.
[ m y l e g e n d a r y g i r l f r i e n d ]
Mike Gayle's version of High Fidelity with a new ending; more accessible but not quite as deep. Maybe my generation is just a touch more uptight than those born before, say, 1965. I haven't read the bevvy of follow-up novels but eye them every time I go by a W.H. Smith.
.
[ t h e r o a d t o l o s a n g e l e s ]
It should have been a warning that the card carrying Bukowski-ites were the same ones praising John Fante. Arturo Bandini thinks he's a great author but his juvenile self-indulgence and self-pity are insufferable. Despite what Fante fans say, there's a good reason this book wasn't published for 50 years.
.
[ b e c o o l ]
I thought I wasn't reading enough commercial fiction (or any at all) and I missed LA so I coupled them into Elmore Leonard's sequel to Get Shorty. An OK book with (almost) strong dialogue. Too obviously a plea for a sequel presented as Chili Palmer's attempt at a second flick.
.
[ d i s g r a c e ]
It's that fine line where you spend an entire book trying to decide if the main character is sympathetic enough. I sometimes questioned why J.M. Coetzee let his characters be so passive but maybe that's just life in contemporary South Africa.
.
[ t h e l a s t t h i n g h e w a n t e d ]
Fiction about a woman reporter who gets caught up in her dad's spying past. Not just about story but also about what Joan Didion can do with language. Not enough authors integrate the way we really talk as a literary voice.
.
[ i n t h e l a k e o f t h e w o o d s ]
This book just felt really insincere. Everything was perfect and it should have been great, but it just wasn't. Politician has career dashed over a few indiscretions in Viet Nam. I remember the reading at Colorado State where Tim O'Brien said he was going to quit writing about that war. He didn't do it soon enough.
.
[ w h i t e b o y s h u f f l e ]
The last word on being an upwardly mobile black surfer in a decidely south Central neighborhood. Paul Beatty's wit fuels the first three quarters but ultimately pulls it below the readability scale. Supposedly his smarts destroyed his second novel, which is why I didn't bother buying it.
.
[ o n w r i t i n g ]
I never really believed in that snobby separation of literary and commercial fiction and Stephen King's book on writing just proves a scribe's a scribe. It was criticized for (sometimes) being overly simplistic, which seemed unnecessarily arrogant.
.
[ p a r i s t r a n c e ]
Geoff Dyer's book about two friends in Paris was unreal. While his skill as a novelist is uneven at best, he showed all too well the transient nature of happiness. The boys' relationship seemed too pubescent for me but the scenes with the girls were perfect.
.
[ a l l t h e k i n g s m e n ]
Robert Penn Warren did an amazing job of illustrating how a politician's private life trickles through to his public persona. I didn't see the plot twist -- indeed the point of the book -- until it was on top of me. Catherine Clark (see Truth or Dairy below) gave it to me for a birthday.
.
[ r e l a x ]
This slice of life book about a hard-core clubber and his girlfriend is more an example of what can be done within the confines of nearly three hundred pages than what can be done right in the same space. Interesting but laborious. What happens is secondary to the switch in viewpoints halfway and the meticulous consciousness stream. Alexa Henning v. Lange only writes in German.
.
[ t r u t h o r d a i r y ]
The first young adult book from my pal Catherine "Catie" Clark. The book was great. She rules. Also read her So-Called life books, Sweet Valley Twins and various others for those under voting age.
.
[ s u r v i v o r ]
David Foster Wallace is probably the greatest young American writer. But Chuck Palahniuk is all that and readable too. Raised by a cult, Tender becomes a cult hero before crashing an airliner with only him in it. Chuck knows our corporate future.
.
[ p l a y i n g f r o m m e m o r y ]
Well, shit. I read this book almost ten years after David Milofsky was trying to teach me to write and I was blown away. The dialogue can be weak, but that's because an editor forced some of it. Amazing. The story of an entire life. Blew me away. I wish I'd listened a little more closely.
.
[ a h o m e a t t h e e n d o f t h e w o r l d ]
I guess I want to think life and relationships aren't this bleak, but maybe they are. And the fact that the book made me think this hard about it is testimony to Michael Cunningham's ability. Beautiful and scary. The cliche homosexual issues are odd touches but easy to ignore considering how they're used.
.
[ h a v e g u n w i l l t r a v e l ]
Maybe Suge Knight was that bad. You have to wonder how the bigwigs at Sony let it get that far. Money is king. Ronin Ro does a good job cobbling the heresay and news stories of Death Row Records.
.
[ r o u n d r o c k ]
Just the other day I was wishing Michelle Huneven would publish another book just so I can climb inside her lovable and flawed characters. More like literary studies of your buddies, this book was wonderful despite my distaste for former alcoholics and that ersatz family cult dubbed AA. She now seems to write restaurant reviews for the LAWeekly.
.
[ l e t t h e d o g d r i v e ]
Another book more about the characters than their story. I bumped into David Bowman searching for an old high school buddy on the web and have loved him ever since. An American road trip novel with a disillusioned middle-aged mom and her twenty-something lover.
.
[t h e c o m e d y w r i t e r ]
I knew right off it was autobiography. But it was also one of the funniest books I've ever read. Man goes to Hollywood to become screenwriter but has little success. I had to stop reading in a cafe because I was laughing out loud. Apparently two Farrelly brothers dilute the humor of one when it comes to the big screen.
.
[ a p r a y e r f o r t h e d y i n g ]
You know, it just seemed insincere. Sheriff loses his mind during nineteenth-century natural disaster. So what? While Stewart O'Nan gave us three-dimensional characters and believable story lines before, this time it feels like you can watch him making this stuff up. Not really worth the effort.
.
[ j a c k ]
You have to love this book even if the writing comes off insincere and goofy. While Jack talks like Beaver, his father's homosexuality is what places this book in the late Eighties and makes it intriguing. A.M. (Amy) Homes teaches at Columbia.
.
[ s h u t u p a n d d e a l ]
Jesse May dropped out of college to become a pro poker player. Then he wrote a book. Well, a narrative. What it lacks in writing, he makes up for in insider knowledge. Really a 22-year-olds vapid memoirs.
.
[ b l u e m o n d a y s ]
Coming-of-age in Amsterdam with little desire to actually come of age. Which is, of course, the ideal life. And a damn good book. I wish more of Arnon Grunberg's stuff was translated.
.
[ a n y w h e r e b u t h e r e ]
Hmm. I'm not really sure what to think of this book. Parts of it -- especially about the daughter -- I loved while other parts and the ending, I'm not sure what they were about. It was an OK movie with Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon. Still, worth a read ... and an editor.
.
[ h i g h f i d e l i t y ]
Don't read Nick Hornby's treatise on parting with the love of your life just months after parting with the love of your life. I only did because the love of my life told me to. So true it almost killed me. Loved the film too.
.
[ s n o w a n g e l s ]
It's Stewart O'Nan's first novel (see The Speed Queen below) and it's good, if a bit rough. Though the deaths, the murder, didn't get me as much as the relationships that fell apart. And their reasons for failing. Which is maybe the point.
.
[ b u f f a l o s o l d i e r s ]
Stewart O'Nan recommended this in a list of 100 novels he said is a ``toolbox'' for his students. This one teaches second-person. O'Connor uses it better than McInerny (though Bright Lights is still a favorite). Its setting in Germany, just miles from me, struck a chord. An amazing, under-hyped novel.
.
[ t h e s p e e d q u e e n ]
Stewart O'Nan makes me want to get my MFA. The man can write. I kept walking past his book at the English language rack in the Frankfurt train station because this mick reporter I drink with -- and whose taste in story I hate -- kept recommending him. But then I was almost late for a train to Munich and just grabbed it. Thank God I did.
.
[ t h e t e s s e r a c t ]
Alex Garland's first book was a great romp through Thailand which made you wonder whether he could keep that literary force through another book. He did, and more. Rightly compared to Graham Greene, Garland is so much more, well, current. The Tesseract is the best book I've read in years.
.
[ d o g e a t d o g ]
Radio talk show host Jay Marvin turned me on to Eddie Bunker. He's sort of a Raymonod Chandler for the '90s. The thing I like -- his characters have no gloss or fast cars. That is, they're real hoods. Plus, since I love LA, his specific references to places I know make the texture of his books all the more real. In Dog Eat Dog, the trio split up the take at the Hollywood Holiday Inn, a place I spent a lot of time in in 1998 when I was dating a Cali girl. The only criticism: The books could be cut by a third to make for a better, fast-paced read. Bunker was Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs (predictably, Tarantino loves him) and makes most of his cash doing screen re-writes. Don't ask what he re-wrote, they're uncredited. Dog Eat Dog is supposedly being readied for celluloid.
.
