I read:
Thoughts:
The Last Days of MankindThe Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus: Reviewed here. There are sudden surprise aliens at the end, so beware.
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby: Much like the aliens of The Last Days of Mankind, sudden surprise magic! Sigh.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: Not much happens in this book. Or at lot happens. It’s one of those.
A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa: Reviewed .
Submission by Michel Houellebecq: See that, right there: I think this is the first time I’ve ever spelled Houellebecq correctly on my first try!
Geoff: Would I like this?
Me: What, Houellebecq? No.
Geoff: Why not?
Me: Take all the nastiness and not nice parts of me, then stretch it out and multiply it enough until it’s one person. That person writes a book. That book is Houellebecq.
Ruby Redfort blah blah blah by Lauren Child: So, this book takes pretty much all the non-misogynistic stuff I hate in kids’ books and puts it all there: genius kid who doesn’t have to try and is a smart-alecky smart-ass to all the adults around her. Don’t listen to her kids — you have to work hard and not just coast along on your brilliance! You’re not just good at stuff, you work to get good at stuff.
I really liked Child’s Clarice Bean books, so I feel put-out that this book was so almost-everything-I-hate.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2015 edited by Sid Holt: Reviewed here.
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville: Reviewed here. Plus, my review prompted Geoff to pick up The City and The City, so now he can tell me whether to read longer-form Miéville or not. Super! He is like my reading guinea pig.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman: I liked it more than I remembered. Didn’t make me a Neil Gaiman drooler-over though. I’m still skeptical.
The Vatican Cellars by André Gide: Reviewed here.
Crackpot by Adele Wiseman: In the 1970s, the Can-lit industry, to stretch out those government grants as far as they could, printed everything in tiny font to ensure that they could make as many copies of the books as possible, flood the market, and have their books purchased by sheer-wearing-down of the populace since no matter where they looked, Can-con books abounded. At least, I assume this is why my library copy of Crackpot from 1974 is printed in nine point font. Why would you take such a good book and put it in such a small font? This is the Can-lit they should make you read in high school (in a larger font though), but they never will, because of all the sex. On the off-chance that you are a Canadian high school student, go find yourself a copy!
Favourite book:
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion: I don’t know why I waited so long to read this book. I really liked it. I want my own copy, but I want my own copy as a beat up, second hand one, with creased pages and suspicious stains (but no writing in the margins; I don’t care what other people thought enough to write down). If you find one at a yard sale or a skeezy used bookstore, get it for me so it can be mine.
Most promising book put on wishlist:
People, in terms of strangers on the internet writing articles at large, not, you know, actually talking to me, keep telling me to read this book.
I watched:
Thoughts:
The Mindy Project: Oh I am sad. I am so sad. I know it is only a sitcom, but everything, oh, the truth, it makes me sad.
Inside Out: Also sad. I cried, pretty much nonstop, through the whole movie, until I gave myself a migraine.
I wrote: Not much. But I decided that much like how a middle third Cantor set has measure zero, but if you add two middle third Cantor sets together, one gets a set of measure two, I will just start randomly squishing some of my story ideas together so that they become not a set of measure zero, but a set of measure two.
So this is what I’ll do.