This is where I keep track of all the books I've read. Nobody's business but my own and the geek facing your screen.

2006

Sheila Heti - The Middle Stories

And excellent set of short stories written by a dreadfully ironic Canadian writer. Heti has recently published her first novel, Ticknor, which I intend on reading sometime this year. Heti hosts her own literary salon, replete with wacky outsider-style performances. You know, the ones where losers from highschool dress up in liederhosen, wear tiaras, and read their screwball poetry. To be fair, though, Heti is a little more than just twenty-something irony and she's certainly humble, which is such a plus when it comes to up-and-coming writers. There is a sense of gutty poetry in her writing that reminds me of Richard Brautigan, if he were somehow mated with Margaret Atwood. The best bit is the one of the guy telling his wife to look at the cows dancing in a circle before the lightning. And then KAPOW!!! Everything smells like barbecue.

The Norton Anthology of Fairy Tales 

A very useful anthology for those interested in the geneology and structural parallels between fairy tales. Classics, such as Bluebeard, are shown in their different version, from Grimm, to Perrault, to Louis Anderson, to etc etc. It's really fascinating to see how Perrault took all the gin and juice out of fairy tales, effectively sanitizing them for a bourgeois public. The Grimms are marginally better. It's when those Norton people get back to the itty-bitty origins that some of the nastier, bloodier and hence symbolically potent elements are revealed. Fairy tales were folk devices for dealing with paranoia and societal stress. Comes complete with several academic papers, several focusing on gender analysis. Some of the more feminist revisions of the tales, however, are puerile in their transparency. 

Brad Watson - The Heaven of Mercury

An excellent debut novel by Brad Watson tracing the history of a mythical southern city called Mercury. Watson walks in the footsteps of Faulkner, with less stylistic invention but no less elegance. These stories link together loosely to form a ragged quilt of the faded south, dark in its mystery and haunted in failed twentieth century romanticism. The best is the bit with the mortician's son, when he encounters his secret highschool crush lying stone cold dead on the table. I can't wait for more Brad.

Oscar Wilde - Short Stories

Strange to say but our Mr. Wilde comes across as a rather religous and moralistic storyteller in these tales, largely intended for Christian youth. Not without wit, and minimally taut, I found them to lack the piercing verve and humour that I like in Wilde. 

Ernest Hemingway - The Nick Adams Stories

I have always loved Hemingway from the day I first read The Sun Also Rises. I can't explain how he does it so succinctly but so much is said with a few lines; a kind of kaiseki for the literary universe. The Nick Adams Stories are by far my favourite of his short stories. Surrogate for Hemingway himself, Nick Adams read like the last of the savagely independant American male, a dying breed in his search for truth and courage. There are breathless inexplicable moments of bittersweet solitude. I think this might be the fifth time I've read this book. 

Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon (never finished... actually, never made it past p. 23)

I want someone to tell me they actually read this book, and didn't lie. It's sooo bloody hard to get into, despite all the funny bits. But, maybe it was just bad timing. In any case, it looks great sitting next to my fat Webster. Maybe next year... 

Bret Easton Ellis - Lunar Park

Ellis is damn readable. He's like cotton candy laced with coke. You can't stop eating it, it makes you feel all giddy, but when you're done you've got a tummy ache. I really enjoyed many parts of this book, the peeling walls, the poltergeist, crazy Halloween party and a shag carpet that grows. The Stephen King mimetic tricks are also quite a treat. However, the ending was queasily saccharine in its appeal for public sympathy, and there are more loose ends than in Lost. Overall, Ellis is still in top form though American Psycho remains the overarching ghost of his career.

Yukio Mishima - Confessions of a Mask

Almost too pungent to be real, this book reminds me of Anais Nin's diaries. Everything is in sensory overload and one feels overwhelmed at their emotional histrionics. I really loved the beginning, the description of the man flying down the hill carrying manure and how this sends Mishima into swooning desire. The rest, the problems of trying to conform to norms while hiding his homosexuality, seem arch and tiring. I didn't finish it.

Colin Jones - Paris, a Biography

A fabulously informative book for anyone who knows Paris well, Jones treats Paris as a personnage, tracing her from Roman times till now.Of course no single book could do real justice to the history of Paris, but Jones's treatment is sound. He captures the mood of the times, providing tantalising historical-cultural-social backdrops to physical space. Makes me realize I'm living in a magical space of deep memory. There are bracketed sections within the chapters that read as mini-testimonials to particular sites and people. My favourite was the bit on Montfaucon, in current times the location of the Buttes-Chaumont park. Montfaucon, during the medieval ages, was a type of execution place where bodies were strung up for the birds and rats to gnaw on. The smell wafted all the way down the rue du Temple. Already sinister, it was later transformed into a sort of free for all abattoir, and then into a garbage dump. It was only during the Haussmannian years that this tragic locale was remodelled and landscaped into the picturesque park we have today. This explains why I always get the creeps late at night around that place.  I've always loved Paris, the way it feels, the way it is. There is something so alive in this city, so romantic and full, that I often feel sad for tourists, who can never stay long enough to really understand the magic of the place. Ironically, this book also makes me appreciate the recent protests even more, understanding how well it fits into the history of insurrection purported by child gangs.

Oakley Hall - Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings

Mr. Hall is one of the more underrated American writers alive. Of course he doesn't treat cogent political subjects such as racism, sexism, power or drugs, but his tone is a tone born and bred on the West Coast. I came across him by reading a review of Warlock, his most famous novel, a western of strange dimensions which is one of Thomas Pynchon's favourite books. This murder mystery is a lovely light read that glimmers with Mark Twain old-school wit. We have Bierce replaying his role as sly journalist/detective in the hunt for a missing Hawaiian princess. The trail follows them through San Francisco, encountering stuttering poets, libertine Hawaiian half-breeds, and old devils. I felt transported to the turn of the century, with the gentlemenly voices of Bierce and Redmond to lead the way. Incidentally, Bierce was a real life writer from the turn of the century. He is most famous for the Devil's Dictionary, which I recommend for anyone who likes laughing cynicism. 

George Saunders - Pastoralia 

finished. review coming soon...

Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

finished. review coming soon...

Oakley Hall - Warlock

started... 

Gosh darnit... about ten books have passed since then and I haven't written a single thing... this list horribly out of date...

Will update at the end of the year. 

2007

Many apologies for the lack in updates on this page. I'm gettin ridiculously bad at updating the blog. Only need to say a couple of things. I have been on a steady Sebald diet and have since moved, inexplicable, to Georges Perec, in FRENCH no less. Also been reading tons of Robert Creeley and some Anne Carson. Poetry butting it's timid head into the year.

Before I write the reviews, here's the list:

W.G. Sebald

The Rings of Saturn

The Emigrants

On the Natural History of Destruction 

Georges Perec

Espèces d'espaces 

Paul Ardenne

Un Art Contextuel