It is still summer, I assure you, but the buzz is all about the big important books of the fall. Well I’m still not done reading my summer trash, and now that a bunch of books on the to-read list are in paperback there’s no excuse. Here’s some shit I saw wandering around the bookstores…
Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett. A Depression-era horror novel that follows a vagrant riding the rails in search of the man who murdered his child. Looks cool but has a stupid title.
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. Cheating cause I already read this, but the trade edition has the same great cover as the hardback despoiled only by a white boxed tag line across the bottom. One of my favorite Lethem novels and well worth a revisit
Blood’s A Rover by James Ellroy. A difficult call, it’s the third book of a trilogy over a decade in the making so I’d have to catch up on the usually convoluted threads of Ellroy’s ongoing plot. He talked some pretty crazy game about this novel and I hate to say it intrigued me, but Ellroy is a genuine fucking nut ball. His newly released memoir about his sexual exploits, The Hilliker Curse, sounds almost too scary considering he talks openly in interviews about his wayward days as a drug addict, breaking into ladies’ homes to smell their underwear and stuff.
And I guess I still have to wait a year for the massive new Murakami book. (Don’t read that link unless you’re primed for spoilers.) Think it would take me less time to learn Japanese and just read the fucker than wait for the translation to be finished, or should Erik and I just commit seppuku (that is if he has enough arm strength to lift the sword and decapitate me).
How did your summer reading plans work out, Blogtown?
Seriously, IQ84 isn’t out for another year? Hasn’t it already been out in Japan for, like, ever? Arrrrrrgh. That’s like some George R.R. Martin-type shit right there.*
*HISTORICAL PRECEDENT: First time Haruki Murakami and George R. R. Martin have ever been mentioned in the same paragraph, except for that one time they decided to go to Vegas together, a trip that was the inspiration for the feature film The Hangover
I think it’s being released in Japan in parts, so part one has been out forever, yeah.
By the time “A Dance With Dragons” comes out, I’m going to have some epic confusion over who the fuck all those people in that book are.
My summer reading has been pretty entertaining so far, what with the dragon tattoos, mockingjays and Houdini.
I tend to save the bulk of my reading for the darker, colder months of fall and winter. The only thing I read this summer that made an impression was “When You Reach Me”. I love me some YA Fiction and that one totally deserved its Newbery Medal.
Read and was moved by “When You Reach Me” (per Alison’s suggestion). Agreed on it being awarded a Newbery Medal. Best read of the summer was “Motherless Brooklyn” – its moody, jittery-then-blustery tone made June almost bearable for a few days.
Right now I’m reading “I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.”, the 40th anniversary re-release of what was apparently the first gay YA novel ever written. I would not say that it is great—it owes a LOT to Catcher in the Rye stylistically—but it’s fine. I am excited for the part where the teenagers make out. And I’m impressed that 40 years ago someone was already using what Bookslut recently called the “We Are Vaguely Included” school of title-writing. (http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010_04_0…)
On vacation last week I read “The City & the City,” which I enjoyed, and reread “Never Let Me Go,” because I’m excited for the movie. I guess those were the two main non-work books I’ve read this summer (and the Hunger Games books). I read them on the hand-me-down Kindle I just acquired. It really is great for traveling.
I read Dying Inside, by Robert Silverberg. I thought his writing was real creative and interesting, and the decline in the character’s power corresponded well with the decaying structure and mood of the writing.