For the last couple of years I've been writing monthly book reviews - you know, all the stuff I read the previous month. I'm not sure how many people actually read them because the comments are usually pretty light but you just might have noticed I've been slacking for the last several months. Three to be exact. I've been otherwise occupied but, with a little time off under my belt I should probably rectify that. I give you the books I read in March, April and May from best to worst.
1. The Ha-Ha (David King). King creates the ultimate hero when a Vietnam vet who lost the ability to speak following combat takes in a nine year-old boy. There is almost nothing that's not wonderful about the story and the way it's written. As a matter of fact, I was sitting next to Beth when she finished the book.
Her: That was a great book.
Me: Wasn't it? I loved it.
Her: Really fantastic.
Me: I know.
Her: I mean, really really fantastic. It's been a long time since I've read something that good.
2. As Simple As Snow (Gregory Galloway). Galloway’s quirky style and sense of humor combine to make his debut novel simultaneously tender and creepy. Better yet, there’s a mystery that you, the reader, must solve. And if you can’t, you can always visit the author’s site and sign up to receive clues via email. I still haven’t noodled it through but then I have to admit I haven't really tried all that hard.
3. Under the Banner of Heaven (Jon Krakauer). I know I'm well behind the curve on this one - everyone read this, like, years ago, right? Simply fascinating! I've become a big fan of HBO’s Big Love and my timing in picking this up couldn’t have been better. Krakauer doesn’t exactly hide his bias but his research and the various subplots are both vastly entertaining and educational.
4/5. Rain Storm (Barry Eisler) and The Hard Way (Lee Child). It's a tie. Barry Eisler’s third volume chronicling the life and times of John Rain is probably his best offering yet. Similarly, Lee Child brings back Jack Reacher for a tenth time in one of his strongest novels. Both authors know how to write and have created some brilliant lead characters. If nothing else, they're fun and entertaining.
6. The Geographer’s Library (Jon Fasman). Fasman's entry into the DaVinci Code-style historical thriller genre is a great debut for the author. While he avoids the traps the Dan Brown copycats fall into, it's not the plot but the writing that captures the reader. His self-depricating lead character and narrator is such a likable guy - and so entertaining - it's a pleasure following him through the book's 300+ pages. I will say this - the book is slow to start and, in the end, some of the more historical information conveyed doesn't seem to have much purpose. Still, it's a decent read.
7. How The Light Gets In (M.J. Hyland). I liked Hyland's debut novel but I'm not entirely sure why. It's a strange tale of an Australian exchange student in America. It provides some social commentary from an outsider's perspective yet nothing much happens. It's stuck in my head though, and I enjoyed the way it was written. Underdeveloped, yes, but worth checking out.
8. Blood Father (Peter Craig). Craig's Hot Plastic was a fantastic, fast-moving novel. Blood Father is almost as good...but not quite. Sure, it's billed as a thriller but it's more than that - it's a story about family. The characters are remarkably drawn and the story itself is well-executed. It's something of a forgettable read but it's compelling enough to keep the pages turning.
9. American Purgatorio (John Haskell). What a strange novel. That's really all I can say without ruining the eventual non-surprising surprise. I know, that didn't make any sense. Haskell's brain works in a very different way as evidenced by the book itself, but the man can write. The book was, in parts, tedious, but there was an eventual payoff.
10. The Underminer (Mike Albo). We all have name-dropping friends who make us feel about two inches tall, right? If you're nodding, go out and pick this one up today. Albo provides readers with exactly one half of several conversations, lectures really, delivered by that annoying friend. The Underminer is funny and, sadly, quite true.
11. Drama City (George Pelecanos). Washington DC native Pelecanos is a talented guy. There is almost no one better at writing brilliantly lyrical and realistic dialogue. The problem with Drama City, however, is that dialogue is about all we get. It's more cerebral than previous novels. Gone is much of the action that typically drives his stories yet the novel never finds its footing as anything other than his standard offering. The brilliantly drawn characters and Pelecanos' style save the novel.
12. Bad Twin (Gary Troup). Bad Twin is, of course, the Lost tie-in supposedly written by Gary Troup (anagram for purgatory) who was lost in the very crash we’re watching play out on TV. I don’t really dig television or movie tie-ins, as they’re typically written by hacks and the quality is sub-standard. Not so with Bad Twin. It’s not War and Peace and clearly it wasn’t ghostwritten by John Irving (it’s rumored to have been penned by Ridley Pearson) but it’s not half bad. If you’re hard up for new Lost material while awaiting the third season, this might help tide you over.
13. Past Mortem (Ben Elton). Elton's a funny guy. I've always enjoyed everything I've read by him and this is really no exception. The problem, I guess, is that it's nothing remarkable. It's a standard mystery-turned-love-story that I got slightly tired of 200 pages in. Past Mortem isn't bad...it's just not fantastic either.
14. In The Company Of Liars (David Ellis). I dig it when authors try something new, something that screws with the format of a novel or the way in which the story is delivered. Ellis did just that with In The Company of Liars. Unfortunately, the results weren't fantastic. In the novel, the action unfolds backwards. Given that we're dealing with an already-complicated plot, this is no easy task. Somehow, Ellis was able to pull it off, writing the action backwards while still maintaining some of the mystery until the end. That, folks, is genius. The story, though, wasn't that hot. Told the right way around, it would have been average. For that, it comes in pretty low on my list.
15. The Broker (John Grisham). John Grisham has never been accused of being John Irving but he can put together a decent story which keeps pages turning while conserving on brainpower. The Broker was just meh, only mildly insipid and moderately entertaining. It’s a great beach book. Don’t expect miracles.
16. Contest (Matthew Reilly). This is, without any doubt, the worst book I've ever read. And that's saying something. I read a lot. The blurb on the back described an action-packed story in which six people are locked in the New York Public Library and compete for their lives. I thought hey, that sounds like a brainless 24-like book and picked it up. I was a little shocked when people and aliens started teleporting through space. The blurb? Not too accurate. My favorite part is the introduction in which the author bitches that this, his first book, had to be self-published because no publishing house would print it. Well duh, dumbass. That's because it's terrible. I wanted to quit a fourth of the way though but I just had to see how much worse it got. It just made me want to shove a toothbrush through my ear canal and scrub my brain. Every copy should be immediately located and recycled as toilet paper.
Huh. Only two weeks late with this. Not bad. Here's what I read in February...
Charlie Huston: Already Dead
Now famous for his incredibly brutal, gritty novels Caught Stealing and Six Bad Things, Huston takes an offramp on the crime fiction highway and enters Horrorville. Already Dead is a novel about vampires in modern-day Manhattan. this concept did not thrill me. I could care less about vampires. But I like Huston so I gave it a shot...and I'm pretty impressed. Already Dead is a great novel that reads like a mystery aside from the whole blood-sucking thing. I don't know enough about the other trillion vampire novels out there to gauge how unique an approach this was but I liked it. If you enjoyed his previous novels, this one won't disappoint.
Stephen Dedman: Foreign Bodies
Each month, I have a new imperative - read one or two of the books that have been on my shelves for years. This was one. It was your standard dystopian science fiction novel in which the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and authoritarian regimes are running the show. There was nothing at all original about the plot or the way it was executed. The writing was decent but, on the whole, there's better stuff out there that deals with the same things more effectively. Anything by William Gibson, for instance.
Sujata Massey: The Floating Girl
Another in the lackluster Rei Shimura series. Last month I think I blamed Massey for cheesy dialogue. And I will do the same this month. I honestly think she's trying to convey something cultural, something inherently Japanese and proper, in her dialogue but it comes off sounding stilted and not at all realistic. That said, she can write a decent story and the education she delivers about Japan is well worth struggling through awkward dialogue.
Peter Carey: Wrong About Japan
During February, I became thoroughly entranced by Japan, specifically Japanese manga, or graphic novels. A few months earlier, as luck would have it, I picked up this slim volume from the author of Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. It's the true story of the trip he and his manga-obsessed son took to Japan. It's interesting but terribly under-developed. I'd have liked it more if it had been twice the length. It just comes off sounding like shallow travel narrative. It's not bad. It's just not great.
William Nicholson: The Wind Singer
When I read Nicholson's The Society of Others a couple months ago I was astounded. It was Nicholson's first novel for adults which really limited what else from him I could go back and read. So I picked up the first of his children's trilogy. The Wind Singer is very Narnia in scope and style. That shouldn't be a surprise coming from Nicholson, who wrote the screenplay for Shadowlands, a movie about C.S. Lewis. That's not to say Nicholson isn't original. He is. The Wind Singer is wonderfully written full of imagery which more than adequately sated my overactive imagination. It is, in parts, a little brutal, a tad scary and there's a lot of death. I enjoyed it but I wouldn't let a 10 year old read it.
Nick Laird: Utterly Monkey
Laird is Ireland's answer to Nick Hornby or Jonathan Tropper. Sure, that sets the expectations high but he can live up to it. Utterly Monkey is a novel about work, hating work, screwing up work, and, most of all, friendship. It sounds cheesy but it's true. It's a very good novel, not heavy and definitely not light.
John Sandford: Mortal Prey
One word - solid. Even Sandford's worst book - not that this is it - is solid. He's just an excellent writer. This chapter in the Prey series finds hero Lucas Davenport facing a familiar foe, a foe that I quite liked the first time she surfaced. It could have been a bit better but it was, of course, solid.
It should come as no surprise (especially if you've been reading my other site) that I read a lot. January was no exception. Here's the recap!
I kicked off the year with Inside Out by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. This "personal history" of the band was fantastic. It was well-written and the text was augmented by personal photos and some of the great artwork fans have come to expect from the band. This really is a must for fans of The Floyd. Also in the must category, with a dreamy feel reminiscent of past Floyd music (how'd you like that segue?), is William Nicholson's The Society of Others. I never really put too much stock in the blurbs found on the backs of novels but one really proved true here - it is indeed like a bizarre cross between Salinger and Kafka. I was completely and utterly beside myself when I turned the final page. In a good way, not like if I ever find the author I'm going to beat him senseless with his novel and inflict a thousand horrible papercuts with his dustjacket...or something.
On the flip side, Terence Green's Blue Limbo just left me bummed. Bummed that I'd wasted my time on it. Granted, it was short so the commitment was minimal. Green turned in the fine Shadows of Ashland several years ago so my hopes were up. Sadly, it was just crap. I was similarly deceived by The Town That Forgot How To Breathe. I really wanted to like it. I'd scoped it out in stores and finally bought the hardcover. I was positive, from the description, that I was going to adore it. Sadly it was like Elaine dancing in that episode of Seinfeld. You know, you have every reason to think she can dance okay but when she starts twitching and gyrating, its astoundingly bad. Kenneth Harvey really screwed this one up (yet admittedly, the guy could probably write and dance circles around Elaine). I know what he was trying to do. I'm not dense. It was a proverb, an allegory. But is proverbial eyes were bigger than his allegorical stomach. The novel never lived up to its potential.
Next up were two novels, both of which took place in Japan. Coincidentally, both featured a half-Japanese half-American protagonist. (Huh. I hadn't realized that before.) Nevertheless, they were very different. Barry Eisler's Hard Rain was the second volume in the Rain series, featuring hit man and jazz enthusiast John Rain (could I say "rain" one more time in this sentence? Oh...apparently). Eisler's experience living in Japan pays off. The novel is packed with detail and paints a very lush, noir-like portrait of modern-day Tokyo. Similarly, Zen Attitude by Sujata Massey, despite its silly title, portrays crime in the big city of Tokyo. It is, however, a little less gritty. Like Eisler, Massey spends a great amount of time educating her readers and, like the Rain series, it's fascinating. Where Massey falls short is her dialogue and plot development. Zen Attitude is clearly the work of a young writer who isn't quite comfortable with her, dare I say it, craft.
Last but not least is Cell by the great Stephen King. I say great somewhat sarcastically because I've never been the biggest King fan. I think it's time for me to admit that the guy can write. He proved it with Cell - a brilliant and utterly disturbing tale. I'd say something cliche like you'll never look at your cellphone the same way again but that's crap. It was horror. You want to read something a little brutal and a little scary, this is your thing.
In the past 12 months, I've managed to consume 84 books. Pretty good considering we've had an infant in the house for five of those months. You can find the complete list in the extended entry. Here are the highlights.
Bottom of the Barrell
There's always crap on the shelves of any bookstore. Occasionally, I manage to end up with it. Hesitant to put any book down after I've started it, I generally finish this trash as well. Shoedog by George Pelecanos was a case of a crappy novel from a great writer. James Rollins' Subterranean was just Journey To The Center of the Earth tweaked and screwed up, complete with one-dimensional characters and stereotypical bad guys. Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled had promise but quickly unwound into a lame attempt to replicate Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Patrick O'Leary hit one out of the park with Door Number Three. Sadly, The Impossible Bird barely rounded first base. It was a mess. As was Leslie Stella's Unimaginable Zero Summer. Talk about one-dimensional characters. Thomas Beller's How To Be A Man was just as bad although it was neck and neck with Neil Labute's Seconds of Pleasure for last place this year.
The Top of the Heap
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City by Nick Flynn is unbelievable but true nontheless and, overall, a fantastic read. Fantastic yet heartbreaking. Flynn writes about what he knows. In this case, its about working in homeless shelters...and finding his father in one. The story of how these two people came to be in this unique situation is compelling.
Jonathan Tropper's sophomore novel, The Book of Joe, reads like a Nick Hornby adaptation of The Big Chill, tweaked for Generation X. For all its schmaltz and cheesy sentiment, is a brilliant, touching novel upon which I reflect fondly. The characters are well-drawn and the story is universal.
Last year, I professed my love for Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. While it seems as though it's somewhat derivitave, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is miles better. There's a key, a lock, a mystery and September 11th. To reveal more would be to be unfair. For you not to read it would be a shame.
I'm not a huge fan of the short story format but there's an exception to every rule - The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas by Davy Rothbart is it this year. Each story is different and each is brilliant in its own way. Rothbart, a self-professed writer, poet and, oddly, rapper hooks you from the first sentence and, while each story and its power is different, he maintains the quality of each story throughout the short volume.
I'm not sure exactly what Daniel Hecht's Skull Session was. Quite possibly, it was a crime novel or a mystery. It might have been a psychological thriller. It also could have been either a horror or gothic novel. It was, most likely, all of these. Whatever it was, guitarist-turned-novelist Hecht's first novel (he's written four to date), was creepy and unique, two good reasons to pick up a copy and check it out for yourselves.
One of the more unique and brutal pieces of crime fiction I read this year was Charlie Huston's Caught Stealing. Througout the wash of violence that punctuates almost every chapter, our hero turns sympathetic dispite his personal failings. Huston's follow-up, Six Bad Things, was almost as strong but not quite. Another mystery with a much different approach is The Final Solution. Michael Chabon has a great reputation but I hadn't read anything of his before seeing this slim novel. That will most likely change. Chabon takes on the tale of a mysterious boy who refuses to speak, his faithful companion, a parrot, and a former sleuth who's health is now failing having retired to the English countryside. The sleuth is never named but is, of course, Sherlock Holmes. The boy, an escapee from a German concentration camp. The mystery is riveting but even more wonderful is the way in which it's told.
Sure, Ken Follett's Whiteout is a cheap mystery/adventure tale and it's inclusion at the top of a list of 84 books is suspect. I'll grant you that. But it really is a good book. Pick it up, spend an evening in front of the fire this winter with it, and see if it doesn't grab you. I guarantee it will.
The best is, of course, saved for last. Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is, after some serious deliberation, the best thing I read this year. It's a book any reader should love. I mean, it's first and foremost about books! I honestly can't recommend this one enough.
How We Are Hungry (Eggers)
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City (Flynn)
A Movie And A Book (Wagner)
Hell's Half Acre (Baer)
The Polysyllabic Spree (Hornby)
Little Children (Perrotta)
The Hanged Man's Song (Sandford)
Home Land (Lipsyte)
Molvania (Cilauro)
Jennifer Government (Barry)
Gone, Baby, Gone (Lehane)
Shoedog (Pelecanos)
A Perfect Life (Stewart)
America: The Book (Stewart)
What Was She Thinking [Notes on a Scandal] (Heller)
Dry (Burroughs)
The Shadow of the Wind (Zafon)
The Coffin Dancer (Deaver)
The Havana Room (Harrison)
A Firing Offense (Pelecanos)
Bone in the Throat (Bourdain)
The Book of Joe (Tropper)
Down By The River Where The Dead Men Go (Pelecanos)
Faithful (Sigerson)
The Eighth Day (Case)
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (Rosenthal)
The Mark of the Assassin (Silva)
Everything Changes (Tropper)
The Tesseract (Garland)
Paranoia (Finder)
One For My Baby (Parsons)
The Innocent (Coben)
Here, There & Everywhere (Roberson)
Killing Floor (Child)
Subterranean (Rollins)
Plan B (Tropper)
The Amber Room (Berry)
The Poo Bomb (Vogel)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Foer)
Tokyo Cancelled (Dasgupta)
The Impossible Bird (O'Leary)
A Long Way Down (Hornby)
Resurrection Dreams (Laymon)
Deception (Mina)
One Shot (Child)
The History of Love (Krauss)
A Certain Chemistry (Millington)
Unimaginable Zero Summer (Stella)
Killing Yourself To Live (Klosterman)
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Rowling)
Sandstorm (Rollins)
Off Ramp (Stuever)
Created In Darkness by Troubled Americans (Eggers)
Miss Wyoming (Coupland)
The Task of This Translator (Hasak-Lowy)
Dude, Where's My Country (Moore)
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas (Rothbart)
Skull Session (Hecht)
Sweet And Vicious (Schickler)
Lies (Franken)
The Guards (Bruen)
Skin Tight (Hiaasen)
Skinny Dip (Hiaasen)
How To Be A Man (Beller)
Caught Stealing (Huston)
Stormy Weather (Hiaasen)
Dispatch (Little)
Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Lindsay)
Seconds of Pleasure (Labute)
Secret Prey (Sandford)
Derailed (Siegel)
Certain Prey (Sandford)
Six Bad Things (Huston)
Vixen (Bruen)
Easy Prey (Sandford)
Survivor (Palahniuk)
Whiteout (Follett)
The Secret Goldfish (Means)
Digital Fortress (Brown)
The Final Solution (Chabon)
Whirlwind (Garber)
Rain Fall (Eisler)
Eating Crow (Rayner)
Chosen Prey (Sandford)
Yep, time to do that book thang again. But before I do, have you noticed that I've added some hot categorization action to the menu over there on the right? Should you, for instance, want to find all the book reviews evah, all you have to do is choose "On Books" and you're there. Money!
Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
Huston's debut, Caught Stealing, was one of the more brutal and unique thrillers I'd read in a long time. When I reviewed it a while back, I believe I strongly recommended picking it up. And I still do. Six Bad Things, its sequel, is almost - but not quite - as strong as its predecessor. While it does get slightly bogged down as the story progresses, it is a brilliant followup. Regardless, it's still far more unique with more style and substance than the majority of the thrillers and mysteries on the market. Huston will be releasing the third in the trilogy shortly and I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Vixen by Ken Bruen
The Guards, the only other novel by Bruen I've read, was excellent. I was thoroughly impressed. His voice is unique and the structure of the novel was so contrary to so much of the crime fiction out there. His focus isn't on the crime but the people involved in the crime. His stories at once present unique crime fiction and pay hommage to the authors and works that came before him. Bruen has written a lot and, sadly, most of it is hard to come by in the States. So, I was pleased to find Vixen in a local bookstore. Sadly, it wasn't all that strong. Only a couple hundred pages in length, it seemed to drag. It was often directionless, its characters two dimensional. It was, overall, disheartening because I know Bruen can do better.
Easy Prey by John Sandford
I applauded Sandford last month for keeping me entertained. After a long absence, I returned to the Prey series and I was pleased that I had. Easy Prey was no exception. While not the strongest novel in the series it was nevertheless fun and fast-paced. If you want entertainment, you really can't go wrong with Sandford.
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
When I read Fight Club, just after it hit shelves, I wasn't prepared for Chuck's style. That might explain why I didn't appreciate it. His writing is frantic, his plots twisted, and his characters unlovable. Yet, for some reason I keep picking them up and, for the most part - now that I'm prepared - I enjoy each one. I've read all but one of Chuck's novels and I have to say that, while strong, I wouldn't rank Survivor among the best. Invisible Monsters still holds that title in my opinion. Survivor is a good read but he's written better.
Whiteout by Ken Follett
I'd never read anything by Follett before, primarily because the subject matter had never before appealed to me. I enjoy mysteries but never really paid any particular attention to espionage novels (about half of Follett's output) nor have I been interested in historical World War II fiction (the other half of his output). When I ran across Whiteout - focused on the hijaking of a lethal strain of virus from a high-security lab - I decided to give Follett a shot. I'm thrilled that I did. The novel was compelling and thoroughly engrossing. I read a lot and find it harder and harder to be taken in by a plot but Whiteout grabbed me. Whiteout is a quick, gripping winter read perfect for one of those days when there's a little too much snow on the ground to go anywhere.
There you have it - some potential winter reading. Enjoy. And if you have any recommendations, just let me know!
Once again, it's time for a review of stuff I read the previous month. And it looks like October was a little heavy on the crime fiction...
Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen
Ahh, another gonzo tale of crimes gone wrong and the not-too-bright criminals who commit them. I like Hiaasen. I don’t think his novels are laugh-out-loud funny but rarely do I read something that is. They’re amusing, though. Hiaasen does run the risk of repeating himself. His formula is straightforward and his characters are two-dimensional. My dad and I were talking about his novels not long ago and it became clear to both of us that, in retrospect, his novels are almost indistinguishable from each other aside from vague plot differences. Yet, for some reason, they’re enjoyable, compelling and very entertaining. This is not fine literature. But not everything needs to be.
Dispatch by Bentley Little
I used to really like Little. He wrote a string of horror novels – The Town, The Association and The Store – that were incredibly well done and insanely creepy. Little has the ability to take an everyday thing, like a store or homeowner’s association – and turn it into something terribly malevolent and scary. I know it sounds strange but it’s true. Little dropped the ball on his last few novels – The Policy and The Resort – so I was hoping he’d pick it back up. He didn’t. No two ways around it, Dispatch was complete crap. The only thing that really scared me was how an author as competent as Little could write something so terrible.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
You have to give Lindsay credit for trying something new and different. Our hero, Dexter, is a crime lab technician who helps hunt down serial killers. Lame, and certainly nothing new there. But wait. What if Dexter is, himself, a serial killer? What if he’s somehow likable and funny? And what if he only kills people who are really pretty terrible to begin with? It sounds like a strange formula but Lindsay makes it work. Darkly Dreaming Dexter is unusual, just a tad violent, and very morbidly funny.
Seconds of Pleasure by Neil LaBute
LaBute is, supposedly, a well-known and critically acclaimed playwright. I didn’t know that but I was so informed when I took the book to the front counter at my local Borders to pay for it. I just liked the blurb on the back of the book. Here, LaBute tries his hand at short stories. If LaBute’s plays are any good, he really should stick with his day job. Seconds of Pleasure is tedious, repetitive and, above all, crap. Each story is remarkably similar to the one that preceded it. There’s conflict revolving primarily or tangentially around sex and/or a relationship. And then there’s a twist. A man and a woman fight over his infidelity. At the last possible moment in the story, we’re hit with the stunner – he was screwing his next door neighbor. A man! Duh daaa! We’re you shocked? You might be the first time but that’s LaBute’s M.O. Shake things up at the last minute and we, the readers, might overlook the fact that the stories were crap to begin with. Save yourself $12.
Secret Prey/Certain Prey by John Sandford
After reading 10 or so volumes of the Prey series not to mention all of Sandford’s other books last year, I was burned out. So, it was nice to pick up the next in the series and return to the world of Minneapolis Police Chief Lucas Davenport. Secret Prey so much, I launched right into Certain Prey. Here’s the thing – Sandford cranks them out at a relentless pace. Yet each novel is astonishingly well written. That could have something to do with the fact that Sandford is actually Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. And Camp knows how to write. His characters are engaging, the crimes are engrossing and the back-story is compelling. And Sandford has some absolutely priceless lines. I enjoyed returning to these so much, I just cracked open another one last night.
Derailed by James Siegel
Yes, this is the book on which the movie is based. There’s a reason the movie hasn’t been well-reviewed. Derailed is a decent thriller but its obvious how it’ll play out by the time you hit page 20. I desperately wanted to be wrong. I wanted a few more twists thrown at me to keep me on my toes. But I didn’t get them. It didn’t spoil the ride – it was still a decent read – but it could have been much, much better.
You know how I always write about all the books I read the previous month? Remember how I'm usually well into the next month before it actually appears? Check this out - we're still in single digits in October and I whipped this bad boy right out. The book reviews, I mean. I whipped the book reviews out.
Daniel Hecht: Skull Session
I read a lot. And I think the more you read, the fewer of those I’ve gotta get someplace where I can read more of this book moments you have. Reading is, therefore, like binge drinking. The more I read, the harder it is to impress me. The more creepy books I read, the creepier the story has to be to achieve creepification. Follow me? Anyway, Hecht manage to hook me almost immediately with Skull Session and, despite the fact that its no horror or ghost story, he creeped me out in the process. I don’t like to recount plots. You can go to Amazon for that. I will say that Hecht writes a compelling, intense story peopled with well-rounded, well-drawn characters. And somehow, throughout all 400+ pages of the novel, Hecht keeps an underlying tension, a sense of unease which forces you to read on yet become slightly afraid of what you might find when you turn the page.
David Schickler: Sweet and Vicious
Schickler’s debut was a collection of subtly intertwined stories called Kissing in Manhattan. It was a good effort and I remember recommending it to a few people at the time. Let me put it this way, bottom-line it for you – I eagerly awaited Sweet and Vicious but I wasn’t about to pay for the hardback version. And I’m glad I didn’t. It was utterly forgettable. As a matter of fact, I’m sitting here having a really hard time remembering exactly what it was about. There was a guy, a girl, some diamonds and some bad guys chasing them across the country. But that’s it. Like I said – completely and utterly forgettable. On the plus side, its short with big type and doesn’t take long to get through. Man, I bet every author loves to hear that. Hey, your book was short and had big type – loved it!
Al Franken: Lies…
Last month I expressed supreme disappointment with Michael Moore’s Dude, Where’s My Country. The karmic gods of political snarkyness heard me and rewarded me in the form of Al Franken. Not Al Franken personally. That would have been strange. Anyhoo, Lies is wonderful. Where Moore is occasionally obnoxious and spiteful, Franken is incisive and witty. The book is well researched (which will come from having a team of Harvard students working from you) and pulls no punches.
Ken Bruen: The Guards
Crime fiction gets a bad rap. Lots of people scoff and maintain that its not literature, that its pulp, a guilty pleasure. Sometimes, those people are correct. Lee Child, John Sanford, Jeffrey Deaver – they’re all fine authors but they’re no Hemingways. Ken Bruen, on the other hand, proves those doubters wrong. The Guards is written in brutally spare prose. It’s rhythmic, almost poetic. The story becomes less about a crime and more about the narrator, someone you’re not sure you like but find yourself pulling for nonetheless. Like Sweet and Vicious, this is a short book with reasonably large type. And yet it packs hundreds of times more story and emotion than Sweet and Vicious.
Carl Hiaasen: Skin Tight and Skinny Dip
Carl Hiaasen’s novels remind me of Elmore Leonard’s…with the key difference being that Hiaasen’s are actually good. Both of these novels revolve around the same main character yet, like all of Hiaasen’s work, the star is Florida. These are gonzo novels – the characters are all tragically or comically flawed, stereotypes abound, wackiness ensues. They’re entertaining. They do, however, reveal an odd personality quirk – stuff like this doesn’t make me laugh. Sure, give me David Sedaris or another Al Franken book and I’ll be cracking up. But, as much as you’d think I’d laugh out loud at something like this, I don’t. I find books like this amusing. I chuckle a little. But that’s it.
Thomas Beller: How To Be A Man
A few years ago, I picked up Beller’s The Pickup Artist. I didn’t like it all that much. But I saw How To Be A Man on a table of new releases and it promised to be good. A collection of non-fiction, it said hey, look, I’m struggling with being a guy and getting a little older so I might know where you’re coming from…pick me up. So I did. And I started reading. Now, I don’t go for fratboy, guyhood shit which says you have to watch football and crush beer cans on your forehead at Hooters on Sunday afternoons to be a man. That’s bullshit. And Beller, thankfully, didn’t extol the virtues of any such behavior. Of course, as I saw it, he was off-topic most of the time anyway. Beller cleverly collected essays that were previously published in various magazines. Then, in a stroke of genius, he put the age at which he wrote each piece under the titles of each piece, labeled the collection “Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood” and shipped it off to publishers. It’s like being sold a case of imported lager only to discover its comprised solely of various brands of cheap light beer. He’s an okay writer although he takes himself a little seriously and its apparent, at times, he’s labored over a particular sentence to make it sound as literary as possible. I read a book by Rachel Cusk a couple years ago that had the same effect on me - made me feel like I was being belittled while reading. Both Cusk and Beller seem to try so hard to prove how good they are that they sacrifice something genuine in the process.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m over-thinking things. But I feel like I was promised something I didn’t get. Settle down with a good Nick Hornby or Jonathan Tropper novel instead. They’re funnier and, oddly, more insightful.
Charlie Huston: Caught Stealing
This is, truly, one of the most brutal books I’ve read in a long, long time. It is intense, often disorienting and really quite good. It's what being at the wrong place at the wrong time is all about. This really isn't for the faint of heart. It is, however, for someone who wants something a bit different, something original.
Those of you who actually keep track of this kind of stuff know that I'm really late. Late with my thoughts on the stuff I read the previous month. I'll play the baby card again. Hope that flies. Without further (or, any actually) ado, here's August, in books...
Sandstorm by James Rollins. I'll say this - it didn't suck as much as some of his previous books. I know, I know - if they sucked so bad, why did I pick up this one. Hrm. Seems like another appropriate time for the baby card. I was actually seeking pure, mindless drivel. And I got it. Rollins writes very generic, bland adventure-thrillers (if that's a genre) that could easily be written by any hack, anywhere. But don't underestimate the entertainment value in cheap fiction.
Off Ramp by Hank Stuever. A collection of articles written by the Washington Post feature writer, Off Ramp takes a look at the off-beat and, occasionally, the just-plain-odd. Each and every one of them is brilliant. Now, I get the Post. It comes to my door every morning. But rarely do I flip through it. I will, now, if only to find Stuever's latest.
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans edited by Dave Eggers. You'd expect nothing less than brilliant, funny fiction from McSweeney's and Eggers. And nothing less is delivered here. Although it's spotty in parts and, occasionally quirky and funny part ways and just become odd. But I like odd. So it works for me.
Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland. I get the feeling Coupland's falling out of favor, that his moment of glory has passed. Reviews of his most recent novels have been less than stellar and this once cutting-edge author might no longer be so hip. That said, Miss Wyoming emerged from Coupland's glory days. Its captures Gen X accurately and yet, as Coupland always does, he catches something else, something meaningful and true. Like Brett Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney, Coupland's fiction might forever be associated with a decade or generation. But there's nothing wrong with that.
The Task of This Translator by Todd Hasak-Lowy. You know how it sometimes takes you a little time to get the author, to understand the author's (and I'm sorry - this will sound pretentious) voice? It wasn't until I made it through the second story in this collection that I got it, that I understood where he was coming from. Hasak-Lowy is a gifted author with a quirky style who clearly loves stringing sentences together. His stories are different, as is the way he tells them. But that's a good thing.
Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore. I like Michael Moore. There. I said it. Yes, he's obnoxious and I'm very well aware that he's a propagandist at heard but I like the fact that he says what he feels. But this book? Not so hot. First, Moore has good ideas but he's so cynical you feel terribly negative agreeing with him. In one chapter, for instance, he does nothing but swear up and down that corporate America has it out for each and every worker, that they don't care about you and merely want to use you up and spit you out. I don't think that's true. I'd like to give people a little more credit than Moore. I know where he's coming from - Flint, Michigan where GM packed up and left an entire community destitute - but I can't operate under an assumption like that. I'm a cynic about my politics but I've got to believe there's some good in everyone. Second, Moore's not a terribly good writer. He sometimes comes off sounding more like the editor of a high school newspaper talking smack about the principal. And I know what I'm talking about. I was the editor of my high school newspaper. Regardless, Moore raises good issues and makes some strong points.
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas by Davy Rothbart. I'm not a short story fan. I like novels, stories with room to grow, to spread out in front of you. Occasionally, I pick up a short story collection, as I did twice in August (again, baby card, short attention span, etc...), and walk away genuinely impressed. Rarely do I find something that inspires awe, on par with the finest fiction I've read. This, however, was one of those times. Rothbart is nothing short of brilliant. I dare you - pick up this collection.
If you pay attention, you'll know that at the end of each month, I create a long-winded post in which I review all the books I've read. If you're really paying attention, you'll know that I've dropped the ball a few months in a row. So I've got a new strategy - I'm going to review books as I complete them! Novel concept, eh? (No pun intended) In order to do that, I have to catch up. I give you the last two months of books...
The Innocent by Harlan Coben. Coben writes effortlessly readable books. They're thrillers that don't really differentiate themselves from any other thriller except for the likability of their characters and the fact that Coben paints them so well. So, its pretty obvious when he's slacking off as he did with this one. Its just meh.
Here, There and Everywhere by Chris Roberson. I really wish this had lived up to its bizarre, time-traveling potential but in the end, it just felt like an under-developed Dr. Who script (okay, so, I like Dr. Who...I never pretended I wasn't a dork.). It's still a fun book. Just don't expect miracles.
Killing Floor and One Shot by Lee Child. Is there a more kick-ass hero than Child's Jack Reacher? I think not. Killing Floor was Child's first and, luckily, not his last...as evidenced by One Shot, his latest. Both were entertaining and well done. Reading them so close together provides some strong evidence that Child's remained a strong, consistent writer.
Subterranean by James Rollins. Question: What's the dumbest book ever written? Answer: This one. Let's look past the minor detail that this book has essentially been written before (the name is Verne, Jules Verne). Here's the plot - group of explorers heads deep into the bowels of the earth. Bad shit happens. Quite a few of these annoying people die. Sadly, not all of them. I mean, there's a Middle-Eastern character here who, during the course of the narrative, bitches other characters' assumptions that he's a terrorist because of his nationality. And then he blows half of them up.
Plan B by Jonathan Tropper. Look, I'm a sucker for Hornby-esque books like this one. Sure, this is Tropper's first and it suffers a little bit because of it. And like his next two books, reads like it will soon become a Major Motion Picture (which it will). But still, there's something about Tropper and the stories he tells that you can't help but like.
The Amber Room by Steve Berry. A historical thriller in the same vein as The DaVinci Code yet, unlike many books touted as "being in the same vein as The DaVinci Code" it didn't suck. At its core is some interesting history, some of it true. If nothing else, its a decent story, reasonably well-written, that provides some cheap entertainment.
The Poo Bomb by Jeff Vogel. The Poo Bomb is an anti-parenting book parenting book and gets a hearty recommendation from me whether or not you have kids (or are thinking about it). How can you not love a guy who's favorite baby picture depicts his daughter in a roasting pan surrounded by herbs? Before anyone calls social services, no, I am not planning on doing that. Really.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. With this, Foer has delivered a minor miracle of a book. He writes of 9/11 without capitalizing on it, without using it and develops a character that will truly shine among all other created in literature this century. Reading is often a feeling thing that, ironically, words don't to justice to. This is one of those novels. And what I felt was nothing short of incredible.
Tokyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta. Very Canterbury Tales-like in its approach but somewhat lacking in its execution. Picture this - a flight is cancelled and a group of thirteen wary passengers are forced to spend the night in an airport swapping stories. The stories themselves are more urban mythology than anything. And while I usually enjoy things such as this, it seemed largely pointless. The threads tying these stories together were too loose. The author would have been better off releasing this as a collection of short stories and giving up on the gimmick.
The Impossible Bird by Patrick O'Leary. O'Leary's Door Number Three was fantastic, odd and fun. The Impossible Bird was a mess. Okay, maybe not a mess but it had a bizarre plot that wasn't always well executed. Worth reading, because O'Leary's a decent author. But try Door Number Three first.
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. Even Hornby at his worst (see How To Be Good) is still excellent. This, his most recent, shows a fantastic return to form while tackling reasonably dark subject matter. Okay, dark. No "reasonably" about it. We're talking suicidal people here. That said, this is funny stuff. Definitely not to be missed.
Resurrection Dreams by Richard Laymon. I do like some horror...even some b-movie grade horror like this. Laymon's final novel, The Island, was fantastic. Since then, however, I have yet to discover one of his books that is even half as good. This one's no exception. Its typical, run-of-the-mill horror. 'Nuff said.
Deception by Denise Mina. Deception is an exceptionally literary mystery. And by that, I mean its not a cheap thriller but something into which a lot of serious effort was channeled. Mina's portrayal of a husband dealing with his wife's conviction for the murder of a serial killer is subtle, plodding and well-done. However, I was ultimately dissappointed that there was never a big TA-DAAA moment. It was much more subtle than that.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. From the very first page, there's a strong parallel between this and Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. There's a reason for that - they're married, a subject that, from the interviews I've read, she's not willing to discuss. But the similarities are astounding. Because of this, its tough to allow the book to stand on its own merits, yet her debut, Man Walks Into A Room, was a fantastic debut novel that I believe I rated as one of my top picks last year. History of Love is good, not as astonishing as her husband's latest effort, but good.
A Certain Chemistry by Mil Millington. Known primarily for his website and his debut, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, Millington spins a tale of infidelity and fame. Since I've already mentioned Hornby twice, third time's a charm. Millington writes like Hornby on speed. Or maybe Hornby after a few bottles of wine and two packs of cigarettes. Its unclear. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that this book is aggressively funny. It never lets up. And yet, there's something truthful at the core. Its not all laughs.
Unimaginable Zero Summer by Leslie Stella. You're aware of the "chick-lit" phenomenon, right? Welcome to the next big thing - nostalgia-lit. I can't tell you how many books I've read about high school reunions, friends providing interventions for other old friends, people journeying back to their hometowns after many years...you get the picture. Most of them have been quite good. This, however, was not. Actually, it was really lame. Nothing happened. I finished it, closed the book and honestly wondered what the whole point was. I didn't take that as a good sign.
Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman. Klosterman, an editor for Spin took a road trip. In a rental car, he set out west from NYC to visit sites at which many major and minor rock legends died. But that's not what this is really about so if you're not into music, don't worry. It sounds like a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie but this is more a memoir of self-discovery. I liked it. Klosterman's about my age and, while I didn't grow up on a farm or spend any of my formative years in North Dakota, I found I could, to a degree, relate.
I don’t have many regular features around here. I’ve never been able to pull that off or have thoughts consistent enough to bring to you on any regular basis. One thing I do try and do is, at the beginning of each month, write a bit about what I’ve read the previous month. Remember March? I didn’t either. I forgot all about it. So I bring you a combined March/April review.
I like to save the best for last so I’ll start with the mainstream fiction that all ends up running together for me. There was, in no particular order, Colin Harrison’s Havana Room, John Case’s The Eighth Day, The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva, Paranoia by Joseph Finder and, resting square on the grey line between cheap mass market fiction and quality, original writing, Anthony Bourdain’s Bone In The Throat.
An aside. I just reread this paragraph and realized that I could be coming off as quite the lit-snob. Not so. We are human and humans have an innate need to categorize. In my mind there are different kinds of fiction. There’s mass-market thriller/mystery/horror, then there’s still fairly mainstream but more painstaking fiction followed by “literature.” And by “literature” I’m kinda thinking of all those books you think you should read but never seem to feel like expending the energy upon. I’m talking Graham Greene, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Bellow. “Literature” has stood the test of time and, somehow, lives up to its reputation. Most of the time at least. Anyway, where was I?
Havana Room turned out to be intriguing at the start then crumbled miserably into an insipid plot with a sappy resolution. Its not worth your time. The Eighth Day, however, takes readers on a jaunt around the world and is vastly entertaining. As is The Mark of the Assassin, although based on Silva’s reputation, I was expecting a bit more. It was average. Finder’s Paranoia was entertaining as well and well worth the read. The reason I lump Bourdain’s Bone In The Throat into this category is simple – if you take all the fancy food-speak (the author is a renowned chef) out of the equation, it’s a funny yet average mob-style thriller. Granted, it is pretty funny and the food element adds a lot. Its worth reading. Just not worth going out of your way for.
George Pelecanos is local author who’s gradually become better known in crime fiction circles. Deservedly so. Pelecanos writes about the District of Columbia with a passion and knowledge few of his contemporaries display. He’s also a great story teller. Both A Firing Offense and Down By The River Where The Dead Men Go follow anti-hero Nick Stefanos, an alcoholic former marketing exec turned private eye. Odd, I know. But it works. Although it is often hard to sympathize with Nick. He makes some bad choices and, in the final analysis, his good only slightly outweighs his bad.
Faithful by Davitt Sigerson is a brief novel about fidelity. Or rather, that’s what the back of the book would have you believe. Instead its about two people making crappy decisions and putting a kid in the middle of it. As I mentioned, its mercifully brief, refuses to ever make a point and I was never really able to connect with any of it. I finished the last page, closed the book and thought “oh.” I doubt that’s what the author was going for.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal might be an unfamiliar name but I first found her online several years ago. Her weekly columns were hilarious. Her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is no different. And its exactly what it sounds like. Its even interactive in a very wonderfully unusual kind of way. Its worth checking out. She’s talented, incredibly funny and very insightful. Just like you since you’re here reading this stuff.
A few years back Tony Parsons wrote a novel called Man And Boy. It was like Terms of Endearment in book form. Not for the content but because its one of the truly great funny and sappy books written. Like, if you didn’t shed a tear by the end someone should be shoving pins in your fingertips to make sure you’re still alive and kicking. Otherwise, you’re on the wrong side of the dirt. One For My Baby proved just as sappy but didn’t seem quite as heartfelt. It seemed more formulaic, like he found something that worked, switched character names and situations a bit and sent it off to his editor. Not that its bad. No, Parsons can write. Maybe its like Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti – after its brilliance even the decent follow-up, Presence, couldn’t compete. I think I just gave Parsons a little too much credit with the Zeppelin comparison, mind you. He’s more Styx or Kansas on the musical spectrum.
Alex Garland is kinda fucked up. There. How’s that for literary criticism? First he wrote The Beach, which was brilliant. Then The Tesseract, followed by the screenplay for 28 Days Later and eventually the novella/mind-fuck, The Coma. I’d read everything of his except for The Tesseract. I really can’t describe it, except to say that its strange yet very much worth reading. Sure, there’s part of it that feels more like a novelty than a well thought out novel but its still worth the $14.
I close with two books by Jonathan Tropper – The Book of Joe and Everything Changes. Both books are most excellent, and I’d even go so far as to say that you should go ahead and spend the $20 for the modestly priced hardback of Everything Changes, his latest. Sure, The Book of Joe is better but still, its worth it. Yes, Tropper writes light, Hornby-esque stuff. Yes, it seems like they’re ready-made for the big screen. In fact, they’ve both been optioned. But, they’re funny and, in a quirky way, wise. I will say no more. You have your marching orders.
So there you have it. March and April in books. And while I’m thinking of it, let me know if you do have ideas for some more regular stuff you’d like to see here. I can’t make any guarantees but I’ll do what I can.
I've been tagged by Casey! Is there a better way to start out a Friday morning than talking about books? I don't think so...unless its not getting out of bed. Here goes...
1. What book would I like to be?
Man, that's harsh. I'm going to go with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or actually any of CS Lewis' Narnia books. Such imagination and so many places to visit. How can you go wrong?
2. Have I ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Honestly, I don't think so...what with them being fiction and all. I suppose I've really identified with a character but I'm not sure I've lusted after one.
3. What is the last book I bought?
The last book I bought was The Book of Joe by Johnathan Tropper which I actually read too. Amazing. I'd encourage everyone to read it. It was simply excellent...and hilarious!
4. What is the last book I read?
I finished Down By The River Where The Dead Men Go by George Pelecanos. He's a crime fiction writer in DC and writes about the city with an amazing amount of detail and, sadly, realism. This one, however, wasn't one of his best.
5. What book am I currently reading?
I'm currently reading The Eighth Day by John Case...your typical mass-market thriller but its entertaining and that's pretty much what I'm looking for right about now. I haven't finished it yet, but for those of you who liked The DaVinci Code, this one has the same kind of feel.
6. What five books would I take with me if I was stranded on a desert island?
Without question, The Bridge by Iain Banks. It was so surreal, so loaded with brilliant imagery and skilled writing, I'm convinced I could be stuck on an island with this book alone and find new things every time I flipped a page. I'd also take Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things which was so wonderfully written I could entertain myself with many of the perfect sentences over and over again. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game never gets old, nor does Mary Doria Russel's The Sparrow and its followup, Children of God.
7. What three poor idiots am I tagging with this FUN FUN FUN?
Without naming names, I'm sure there are some others out there who might like to play along. I'll let them make of their minds. But comment here and let me know you're doing it!
The first ten randomly decided songs from Friday's playlist...Under A Mountain (The Black Crowes), Down In A Hole (Alice In Chains), In Hiding (Pearl Jam), Bartender (Dave Matthews Band), See You On Rooftops (Neil Halstead), Heal (Catherine Wheel), Mixtape (Butch Walker), No Excuses (Alice In Chains), Bite Your Tongue (Duncan Sheik), Hand In My Pocket (Alanis Morissette).
Late last year, I set up a book club. Does anyone remember that? Yeah, I only have a vague recollection myself. We read a couple of books, discussed them and a good time was had by all (remember that one time with the strippers and the car giveaways?). But then the whole thing fell of my radar. I was just in there and its dusty, some of the lights are broken and its really creepy. Yet, I want to resurrect it...but only with your help. I'm looking for a few good readers to help run the site and moderate the forums. When my slack-ass, well, slacks, I won't bring the whole thing to a grinding halt.
Make sense? Okay...who's willing?
Once again, its the start of a new month...and time to check the list of stuff I've read to tell you if any of it was good. Might as well jump right in, no?
George Pelecanos doesn't deserve to be thrown into generic, mass market paperback territory. He's got such incredible talent, a flair for dialogue and an urban grittiness that seems to seep into every pore of the reader. Sadly, Shoedog wasn't his greatest novel. Actually it was one of the worst. Start elsewhere - Nick's Trip for instance. Mike Stewart's A Perfect Life did fit the generic mystery bill just fine with an over-used plot, average writing, limp characters and very little in the way of intrigue. Skip it. The Coffin Dancer was my third mass market paperback mystery of the month. Jeffrey Deaver is a great writer and his novels always satisfy. This is no exception.
Moving on, I realize I'm pretty much the last person on the planet to finish America: The Book by Jon Stewart. I like Stewart and I enjoyed the book. There's one joke but its pretty clever and the punch line is delivered well throughout.
Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking [Notes on a Scandal] was recommended by Nick Hornby in a column I recently read. If you're in the US, you've probably heard the Mary Kay Laterno story. Teacher gets hot-and-bothered over student. Teacher allows hot-and-botherage to overcome her. Teacher does student. Teacher gets caught. Shame. You know, the age old love story. In this novel, Heller creates a similar story except its the motives of the narrator you need to be hip to.
After reading his first memoir, Running With Scissors, there's no clear explanation how Augusten Burroughs managed to become a functional member of society. The fact that he made it this long is amazing. Dry provides us with further jaw-dropping details written with awe-inspiring deftness, especially since he didn't make it past elementary school.
I saved the best for last, as I always do. Probably the best thing I've read so far this year is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Witness the opening paragraph:
"I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Monica in a wreath of liquid copper."
When I prepared my whole review of the top books of 2004 earlier this month, I managed to forget about posting what I’d read in December. Combine that with January’s reading list – I’ve got a tired, pregnant wife so its quite a long one – and I’ve managed to come up with a lot of stuff to review. And that? Would be boring for everyone and a hell of a lot of typing for me. So, to make it less painful for everyone, especially those of you with short attention spans like me today, I give you my concise reviews!
The Man With The Golden Gun: Ian Fleming
Good, but not as good as some of the other Bond books (Dr. No and You Only Live Twice hold up much better). Regardless, I grew up on the movies so going back and reading the books is always fun. There’s a trend though – aside from the general plot, very little translates from the books into the movies.
Kiss Me Judas, Penny Dreadful and Hell’s Half Acre: Will Christopher Baer
Imagine a fucked up Chuck Palahniuk. Okay, okay…a more fucked up Chuck Palahniuk. Interested? Will Christopher Baer is your guy. All three of these novels revolve around anti-hero Phineas Poe. All three are raw, brutal and hallucinogenic. And? Extremely entertaining…in a dark, twisted kind of way.
Girls: Nic Kelman
Probably the second worst thing I’ve read over the last couple of months. Its complete, unadulterated crap. We’re supposed to feel sorry for rich, male protagonists who can’t seem to find any way to get their minds off of young and occasionally underage girls? ‘Cmon! Oh, and Mr. Kelman? When you suggest the works of Faulkner, Melville and Hemingway as 'further reading', you’re left sounding stupid and arrogant especially in light of your own inability to write anything decent.
The Enemy: Lee Child
Occasionally, I just like a good mystery or thriller. This fit the bill nicely. Child’s books are always entertaining. Pulp, but entertaining.
Possession: James A. Moore
I don’t advocate burning books…unless its this one. Moore’s previous novel, Fireworks, was pretty good. I thought I’d give this one a shot because I was in the mood for something mindless and entertaining. It sure was mindless. Perhaps what bothered me most was a complete absence of anything resembling a plot. It was really all downhill from there.
How We Are Hungry: Dave Eggers
I loved his debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but in no way did I consider it “the shit” as did so many others. With this collection of short stories, however, Eggers proves he can write. It is, perhaps, the best collection of short fiction I’ve ever read…and I’m not a huge short fiction fan.
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City: Nick Flynn
Flynn’s memoir is truly one of the most absorbing memoirs I’ve ever read. Imagine, if you will, working in a homeless shelter…and running into your homeless father.
A Movie…And A Book: Daniel Wagner
This extremely short volume is truly original. Reading this elicits a feeling similar to the one I’d imagine the actors felt when they read the script for Memento. Wagner guides the Escheresque plot masterfully. Its odd, quirky yet only marginally satisfying after all is said and done.
The Polysyllabic Spree: Nick Hornby
Have you read Hornby’s Songbook? You really should. This, Hornby’s latest effort, is a must for readers. Over the course of several months, he chronicles the books he buys and reads. Yet, as he did with Songbook, essay topics expand to cover his thoughts on just about anything. Hornby, as always, is funny and genuine.
Little Children: Tom Perrotta
Perrotta satirizes suburban life, especially the young, upwardly mobile residents with small children. Little Children is well-written and occasionally funny yet it seemed a little too light and airy to me. Worth reading but its not going to change your life.
The Hanged Man’s Song: John Sandford
Sandford is a reliable writer of mysteries and thrillers and this, his latest, did nothing to change my opinion. Like so many novels of the genre, it was largely inconsequential pulp but it was a great deal of fun to read.
Home Land: Sam Lipsyte
Ever get those alumni newsletters from your old school? The ones detailing what folks from your class are up to now? Imagine would the updates from the self-professed class loser would look like. And there you have Home Land.
Molvania – A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry: Santo Cilauro, ed.
Molvania is a fake travel guide. That’s the joke. But somehow that one joke manages to work through 200 pages of restaurant and hotel descriptions, photographs, and histories of this imagined country. I don’t remember laughing harder at anything I’ve read in a very long time.
Jennifer Government: Max Barry
Barry imagines a world in the not too distant future in which corporations eclipse government influence…and surprisingly its not all that difficult to believe. Not exactly a leap that’s tough to make. Above all else, its deftly handled satire that makes some interesting points but doesn’t allow the entertainment value to suffer because of them.
Gone, Baby, Gone: Denis Lehane
Known primarily for Mystic River, Lehane’s first series of mystery novels have gone largely unnoticed. Which is a shame because they’re brilliant. There can be no doubt that Lehane is talented. This is no exception.
I read quite a few books in 2004. Looking back over the list now – I write down everything I read and when – I notice its not as many as the previous year, but still impressive all the same. But what did I enjoy the most? Ah, that’s a tough one. These are all radically different from one another so it would be unfair to rank them. Therefore, in no particular order, I give you the best of 2004...
The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
Since I read this back in February, I’ve wondered how to classify it. Is it straight literature? Is it a mystery? Somehow calling it mystery just lumps it in with Grisham or Patterson and its truly not at all like those. Welsh, in this, her debut novel, presents us with an odd mystery and an even odder hero – Rilke, a gay and promiscuous auctioneer. The reader doesn’t just enter a mystery; we’re allowed entry into the strange world of Scottish antiques dealing and the lives (albeit fictional) of those who do such things for a living. So yes, if you’re reading this and thinking that it sounds much like an Antiques Roadshow episode watched while on hallucinogens, maybe that’s about right. Sure it sounds odd, but after reading its understandable why Welsh has been awarded so many literary prizes for The Cutting Room.
A Box Of Matches by Nicholson Baker
Baker received a lot of attention this year for Checkpoint, a politically motivated novel considered by many critics as the worst book of the year. It would be a tragedy if Checkpoint were remembered for its sensationalism more than A Box of Matches for its simple meditations on life. Everyday, Emmett, father, husband and textbook editor wakes up early, lights a fire and writes down his thoughts. Its not exciting; there’s no good sex or action. Perhaps it’s the ability of everyone to identify with Emmett’s thoughts that makes this short novel compelling and so meaningful.
Man Walks Into A Room by Nichole Krauss
In Krauss’ debut, Columbia professor Samson Greene is found in the desert outside of Las Vegas. His memories of life after the age of 12 are gone, including those of his wife, friends and profession. Krauss does throw in some unnecessary curveballs, including scientific experiments on Samson that never really evolve into much, yet these don’t detract from the overall experience that is this wonderful story.
Shutter Island by Denis Lehane
Lehane is, perhaps, a victim of his own success. His previous effort, Mystic River, received well-deserved praise yet that praise and the subsequent movie based on the book eclipsed the release of Shutter Island. Which is too bad because it might just be the best thing Lehane’s written. Two US Marshalls, a mental institution isolated on an island in Boston Harbor, an escaped patient running loose and an approaching hurricane – how could it not be good? Lehane handles the story deftly, adding twists and turns the reader never saw coming. I think the sign of a good book is that it somehow alters you or the way you think. And this story proves difficult to forget; I read Shutter Island in May and still find my mind wandering back.
Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer
Dyer’s words summarize this collection of essays better than I ever could. He states, “This book is a ripped, by no means reliable map of some of the landscapes that make up a particular phase of my life. It’s about places where things happened or didn’t happen, places where I stayed and things that have stayed with me, places I’d wanted to see or places I passed through or just ended up…Everything in this book really happened, but some of the things that happened only happened in my head; by the same token, all the things that didn’t happen didn’t happen there too.” Exotic places, unique perspectives and a keen sense of humor make Yoga an essential read.
Crawling At Night by Nani Power
Dark and hypnotic, in an almost Lost In Translation sort of way, Power paints a raw, uncompromising portrait of life in Manhattan. Its about Ito, a sushi chef, Marianne, a waitress, loneliness, displacement, alcoholism and love. Its bleak, yes, but its strength is in its honesty, its no-holds-barred style. Raw. Uncompromising.
Politics by Adam Thrilwell
Possibly the most entertaining read of 2004, Politics is ambitious and singularly unique. Its about sex, relationships, emotions, the Queen Mother, shopping, Bollywood and threesomes. More important, how all these things impact Moshe and Nana, Thirlwell’s main characters. Yet the action of the book is complimented by commentary from Thrilwell or the narrator himself. Take for example one of the asides, “This chapter is in two halves. They are not equal halves. The first half was unhappy. It described an awkward complication. Whereas the second half is much shorter and is happier. It is a pastoral scene. It is a contemplation of the animal kingdom.” Politics involves the narrator in a way I’ve never before experienced. Have I mentioned its unique? A general warning to potential readers – the novel is very graphic. If you’re not up to very specific descriptions of sex, you might want to steer clear.
November has passed and, while it seemed to fly by, I managed to cram a lot of reading into those thirty days. Here’s what I read and what I thought.
Around Halloween, I got in the mood for something a little scary, so I picked up Peter Straub’s Lost Boy Lost Girl. Having not read Straub before, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised by what the book offered. Part mystery, part thriller, Lost Boy Lost Girl offered a nice amount of creepiness balanced with decent writing and great characters. I find it hard to get freaked out by anything I read, no matter how scary, and this was no exception. That said, its got its chilling moments. Do I recommend it? I’ll put it to you this way – Straub has just released a new novel starring the same main character. I’ll read it but only after it comes out in mass market paperback.
Thisbee Nissen’s The Good People of New York had been of interest to me since it came out in 2001. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a new copy for $5 in, of all places, New York this fall. Nissen proves talented, accomplishing in 288 pages what few writers could with twice the paper. It’s a family saga without the whole saga-part. Instead Nissen provides readers with sequential snapshots of life yet somehow makes the whole story flow and work. Its funny, well-written and (without trying to sound like a hack for People magazine) moving.
A few months back, I read Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannoli. I finally found Partly Cloudy Patriot at the local bookstore and decided to take it for a spin. Especially since November made me feel mostly cloudy in the patriotic sense. Its not strictly political, mind you. In addition to tackling subjects such as the popularity of invoking Rosa Parks metaphors and the life of Abraham Lincoln, she also writes about Tom Cruise’s breakout performance in Magnolia (I agree), Tom Landry as an existentialist, and German cinema. Really, its good, I swear!
Paul Auster’s Ghosts, the second book from his New York Trilogy, proved to be a lowlight of the month. Auster essentially found himself repeating the first volume of the trilogy. While I like Auster’s style and wholeheartedly recommend most anything he’s written, I think Ghosts is for die-hard fans only. When you’ve run out of good Auster material, pick this one up. Reach for The Book of Illusions or Leviathan first.
Los Angeles Diaries by James Brown (no, not that James Brown) has to be one of the toughest memoirs I’ve ever read. Jumping around in time from the 1960s through the 1990s, Brown lays out the simple, unflattering facts about his life, his career (as a screenwriter) and addict. The picture painted from the compilation of all these pieces is singularly abhorrent and Brown makes no excuses for that. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a wonderfully written and well-executed memoir worthy of a read. If nothing else it’ll prop you up a bit. The fact that Brown has gone though as much as he has and survived intact enough to write about it will surely make some of your own problems seem inconsequential.
Bond. James Bond. I’ve loved the Bond movies since I was a kid but its only been over the course of the last year and a half that the original Bond novels by Ian Fleming were reprinted. Curious, I picked one up and have been reading them on and off for a while. This month I chose Moonraker. If you hadn’t guessed, the folks that wrote the movies took a lot of liberties with both Fleming’s stories and the Bond character. Moonraker was no exception. Slightly more plausible than the cheesy and unrealistic movie version, this one proves to be a good, fun read worthy of picking up.
Possibly the most disappointing read of the month (besides the Auster debacle) was Deprivers by Steven-Elliot Altman. Be wary of any man with a hyphenated first name. The concept was decent in a speculative-fiction, sci-fi kinda way. The execution just wasn’t all that hot. The writing was simplistic and the characters weren’t well developed at all. On the plus side? The writing was so simplistic that it took no time to make it through the book's 350 pages. It coulda been better…but then again, so could this review.
In the grand tradition of magicians and, well, reviewers, I saved the best for last. Adam Thirlwell’s Politics is an unusual yet brilliant first novel. It is not, repeat not, about politics in the traditional sense. Instead, its about sex, relationships, theater, Bollywood, etiquette and, well, sex. Sound unique? It is. But a word of warning – if you’re easily offended, read something else. Its graphic, yet not for the sake of being graphic. Call it honest. And frankly what we all need is a good, honest piece of fiction every now and then, no matter how much of a contradiction that seems to be.
I feel uniquely qualified to review the books on my reading list for October. Largely because I've read them. As always at the beginning of the month, here are the reviews...
First, my guilty pleasure read of the month, Bentley Little's The Resort. I lurve me a good, cheesy horror novel, especially one by Little. No, he's not the world's greatest writer but he's got some interesting ideas. As he did with The Association, The Store and The Policy, he takes an everyday situation - staying in a luxury resort in Arizona - and takes it into creepy-ass territory. I still favor The Association over all his other novels, but this was entertaining. I mean, what can you say about horror - it ain't groundbreaking but its a lot of fun.
With Take The Cannoli, Sarah Vowell - contributor to NPR and McSweeny's - examines American culture with honest, often hilarious, and generally bizarre insight. From an examination of Abe Vigoda's character in The Godfather (from which the title of the book was taken) and her subsequent obsession with the film to an examination of Frank Sinatra as the original American punk, Vowell peeks at our national quirks. And shines.
I admire Chuck Palahniuk, not to the extent of many of his loyal followers who've seemingly sipped from the Chuck Kool-Aid, but I honestly believe his Invisible Monsters was one of the wisest books I've read in years. Sadly, Diary doesn't live up to its predecessors. Despite being packed with Palahniuk's usual wit and manic narrative, the book failed to capture me. Sure, it was good...it just wasn't great. Try Invisible Monsters, then Lullaby. If you're still intrigued, and not entirely worn out from the frenetic pace of Palahniuk's novels, check out Diary.
Fidelity is a collection of short stories by Michael Redhill, acclaimed for his debut novel Martin Sloane. While I own his first novel, I haven't yet read it. Instead, I dove into a copy of this collection I happened upon for $10 in NYC. Redhill's obviously a talented writer. He can string together a mean sentence. The problem is that he hasn't mastered the art of ending a story. The collection is worth reading. Just don't expect well-executed endings.
I ended the month with the best - Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company. Having read and enjoyed Shopgirl, his debut novel, I looked forward to Martin's second effort. I was handsomely rewarded. The Pleasure of My Company is a wonderful, thoughtful and...god, I hate to use the word for fear of sounding cheesy...nice novel. Martin's a smart guy. We all knew that. But he has a considerable talent with the written word and weaving a simple, satisfying story. Of October's novels, I recommend this above all others.
Its that time again - time to look back at the books I plowed through the previous month and make some recommendations. I'm definitely headed in the right direction - July was a pretty bad month for books and August showed improvement. September continued the trend.
First up, and probably the book I can most recommend is Well by Matthew McIntosh. Its a novel but that term is used somewhat losely. This is a collection of seemingly random stories, chapters and sentences that all seem to support one central premise - despair. The back of the book describes the "well" as a place almost devoid of happiness. The bits and pieces collected here seem to bear that out. However, I think its more appropriate to think of "well" as a feeling...for which this book provides the antithesis. Tales of drug abuse, physical and mental abuse, suicide, alcoholism all weave together to tell a tale of residents of a Seattle neighborhood who are not, indeed, well...at all. As you can tell from my incoherent review, I'm not quite sure exactly what McIntosh has done here and yet whatever it is proved to be a moving novel despite its dive into the deep end of despair. Take some Prozac before reading...but definitely read it.
Donorboy by Brendan Halpin was next up. I can't begin to express how much I enjoyed this short yet big novel. Told entirely though journal entries (much like a blog), email and IM conversations, Halpin tackles a lot in a very short amount of time. Donorboy is the tale of a girl who's two moms are killed in an accident, after which her biological father (Donorboy) takes custody of her. Halpin has an incredible talent for voices - he writes convincingly as both girl and father and displays a remarkable sense of humor while managing to convey the gravity of the situations in which the characters find themselves. An excellent read, especially for bloggers such as us.
Garrison Keillor's Love Me proved to be the one dissappointment of the month. I'll preface by admitting that while I'm a Prarie Home Companion fan, I've never read anything he's written. This was my virgin foray into Keillor territory...and I wasn't all that impressed. Perhaps its because he deviated from Woebegon territory. Maybe it was the fact that I'd rather not picture Mr. Keillor, purveyor of innocent tales of small town life in the midwest having sex with numerous members of the opposite sex. Maybe its simply because the story was flat and only provided him with opportunities to riff. It wasn't bad - it just wasn't great.
Old School by Tobias Wolff provided a return to decent fiction. Set in an all-boy's private boarding school in the 1960's, the story revolves around one boy, his love of literature and his desire to meet Hemingway. Wolff uses the story in an interesting way, primarily to highlight thoughts and feelings about some of the prime literary movers and shakers of that time. Its dry in spots but ultimately satisfying.
Paul Auster's City of Glass, the first volume of his New York City trilogy, rounded out the month. I've always enjoyed Auster's work and this was no exception. The story itself is like a literary Escher sketch - it folds in on itself like the sketch Escher drew of the one hand drawing the other, providing whatever the literary equivalent of an optical illusion is. Yes, its a little odd. And ultimately, it may not yield as much satisfaction as you might hope. Yet its still very much worth reading.
It's that time again - the beginning of a new month! Which means looking back at what I read the previous month. If you recall, I wasn't really happy with what I ended up reading back in July. Luckily, August was better.
I think the highlight of the month has to be Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It by Geoff Dyer. To blow any preconceptions out of the water now, this book has little, if anything to do with yoga. I'll default to Dyer's own words for an explanation.
"This book is a ripped, by no means reliable map of some of the landscapes that make up a particular phase of my life. It's about places where things happened or didn't happen, places where I stayed and things that have stayed with me, places I'd wanted to see or places I'd passed through our just ended up." He continues, "Everything in this book really happened, but some of the things happened only in my head; by the same token, all the things that didn't happen didn't happen there too."
Yoga is like a well-traveled David Sedaris on crack. As I was reading, I found myself open-mouthed and muttering things like "if I could only write like this."
While Yoga might have been the overall best thing I read in August, certainly Wigfield by the team of Sedaris, Dinello and Colbert was the funniest. Its fake journalism at its very best and I don't recall having ever laughed out loud as hard with any other book.
Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker has gotten a lot of press lately - and rightly so. The book, a slim 115 pages, consists of nothing but a conversation between two people in a Washington DC hotel room. The conversation? Its about killing the president. As in, the current one. I've always been a big fan of Baker's. I think his last novel, A Box Of Matches was one of his finest. Checkpoint, however, is a novelty. It doesn't function well as a novel. The conversation is good, witty and bold but the book itself seems rushed. Its clear that Baker had an agenda. The Republicans among you will not enjoy this. Fierce Democrats most likely will.
Sailing Alone Around The Room is a collection of poetry (yes, I said poetry) from former poet laureate Billy Collins. Now, I'm not a fan of poetry in general but Collins writes poetry thats quirky, meaningful and, unlike elaborate sonnets with rhyming couplets, ordinary about everyday things with which we can all identify.
The last book I'll mention here is Bentley Little's The Walking which falls squarely into the cheap horror novel category. I do love a cheesy horror novel once in a while. Sadly, Little really dropped the ball on this one. By the end, I just really didn't care what happened. Its too bad - some of Little's other books have really been quite good.
So, that's it for August. We'll see what September brings!
Hudson and I have had a brilliant idea, a stroke of genius, I tell you (that should also tell you it was mostly hers)! Well, actually you'll be the judge of that. Here's the pitch - a bunch of us all read a lot of books. I can tell that from all of your sidebars. I know I respond to a lot of email about books I've read or what I'm currently reading. I even post all my reviews at the end of each month. So...what could be more natural than a little book club action?
All you have to do now is let me know if you're interested. So comment already!
We're a third of the way into August and I've been remiss in reporting on what I read during the month of July. The thing is? There really wasn't anything all that good to report on.
The book for which I had the highest hopes was The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason. Turns out those hopes were misplaced. While marginally entertaining, the novel doesn't live up to either is promise or hype. I chased this dissappointment with Fireworks by James A. Moore which was a surprisingly good novel about a small town under extraordinary conditions. After that? One of my guilty pleasures...a cheap horror novel by Richard Laymon. Sadly, Endless Night was, as advertised, seemingly endless and overall it sucked. David Sedaris to the rescue! Surely Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim wouldn't let me down, right? Well, it did. I mean, it was good, don't get me wrong. But Sedaris is better than that. After Lucy by Daniel Jones ended the month on a brighter note, having delivered a wonderful story that, despite themes of loss and grief, inspired a little hope.
So July? Not the greatest month for books...or at least the ones I read. Hopefully August will turn out just a wee bit better.
Its the beginning of the month so its time to look back on the best and worst books I consumed during the month of June...
What I Enjoyed:
The book that's stuck with me the most since I finished it is Nani Power's Crawling At Night. Its a very non-traditional novel yet the story of a Japanese sushi chef and his affection for woman who can only be described as a hopeless alcoholic has managed to stay lodged in my brain despite having read four or five other novels since. Also excellent was Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! Written from the perspective of four people involved in a very Columbine-like school shooting, the novel is disturbing yet heartfelt.
What Was Just Okay:
Just One Look, Harlan Coben's latest, delivered an enjoyable mystery but didn't live up to the expectations set by his previous three novels. Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was nothing spectacular despite the critical praise it received. I couldn't help but think he'd fallen well short of what he was obviously capable of. With Dead Even, Brad Meltzer did what he does best - write a character-driven legal thriller. It was entertaining, nothing more. The Coma is the latest release by Alex Garland, author of The Beach (from which the movie was made), The Tesseract and the screenplay for 28 Days Later. There's no questioning his talent but The Coma just didn't work. It was, in places, intriguing but lacked the punch of Garland’s previous efforts.
What Wasn't All That Hot:
Monkeewrench by PJ Tracy (actually a mother-daughter writing team) received a lot of hype but really wasn't great. It was a derivative throw-away. Jonathan Carroll's The Marriage of Sticks was just plain bad. That's particularly sad because I've read and enjoyed a few of his earlier novels.
As always, if you have any thoughts or recommendations, let me know!
As Goodsnake pointed out, I read a bit. I've seen this meme floating around but finally decided to play along. Steal it, post it on your site, bold the books you've read and add three of your own!
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The DUrbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alices Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Joness Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. Georges Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick OBrian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlottes Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophies World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winters Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline LEngle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. OBrien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen Gods Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setters Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magics Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magics Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magics Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Enders Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lions Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucaults Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline LEngle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster loved
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J