Is one way street no longer posting? I want to see the list.― jmm, Monday, 17 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― jmm, Monday, 17 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
far as I can tell ows isn't posting. Shame really
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 21 December 2018 16:07 (five years ago) link
just re-read all of Pierre Michon’s Winter Mythologies and Abbots, translated by Ann Jefferson which i read at the end of last year as well. It’s very much at the top of anything i’ve read in recent memory.
― Fizzles, Friday, 21 December 2018 19:53 (five years ago) link
Next year - I think my New Year's resolution will be to take a note of stuff I read, or watch.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Friday, 21 December 2018 19:57 (five years ago) link
And drink! I should keep a whisky journal too...
Love that Michon (though I read it in one sitting in a pub so need to re-read myself) and also would be tempted to read his other translations despite these not being as well regarded in the nyrb Michon overview:
https://archipelagobooks.org/book_author/michon-pierre/
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 21 December 2018 20:13 (five years ago) link
I've reached the seventies this year, and mostly finished my pile, which I feel very good about. Two books I stopped (a fat Thiong'o and a fat Pynchon) and close to 25 highlights, which is what I'll post here (in order of reading). Titles in French where applicable. I'm a young reader so expect classics too.
Atwood - The Handmaid's TaleFukazawa - The Ballad of Narayama (untranslated in ENG iirc)Bulgakov - Heart of a Dog*James - A Brief History of Seven Killings*Gyasi - HomegoingKourouma - Les Soleils des IndépendancesMiller - The Crucible Emecheta - The Joys of MotherhoodPushkin - Eugene OneginPlath - The Bell JarNdibe - Arrows of RainGray - Lanark: A Life in Four BooksBulgakov - A Young Doctor's NotebookTolkien - The Hobbit (or There and Back Again)O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to FindMofolo - ChakaLe Guin - The Dispossessed*Tchekhov - Three SistersHamidou Kane - L'aventure ambiguëStrugatskis - Roadside PicnicHuysmans - Là-basSôseki - BotchanRhys - Wide Sargasso SeaAragon - Le Con d'IrèneKessel - Belle de JourSalih - Season of Migration to the NorthPushkin - The Captain's Daughter*
*top favorites
― Nabozo, Sunday, 23 December 2018 19:18 (five years ago) link
I read the Pushkin and the James this year too!
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Sunday, 23 December 2018 21:33 (five years ago) link
My profound respect to all multi-lingual ILBers. My unilingual brain seems unable to absorb more than the merest smattering of other languages.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 23 December 2018 21:57 (five years ago) link
I'm much the same. I studied English at a reasonably high level - got a degree in English lit ad a degree in Philosophy in which I focused on language. But for some reason I can't do other languages. Though, I was pleased to discover that I remember the polish Xmas greeting after learning it last year. But I lived in Berlin for 3 years as a kid, studied that at school, at uni I tried Ancient Greek, privately I've tried spanish, russian, scots Gaelic. I just don't have the head for it, for some reason.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Sunday, 23 December 2018 22:12 (five years ago) link
i didn’t keep track of what i read this year, and i read regrettably little. i know i read the new ottessa moshfegh, i read talk by linda rosenkrantz, i read a bunch of the power broker but didn’t finish it. read a few short denis johnson novels i can’t temember the names of. im currently reading the vegetarian by han kang and it’s great
― flopson, Monday, 24 December 2018 00:15 (five years ago) link
I think it's close enough to year's end now that I feel secure this list would, at most, lack the title of a partially-finished book on New Year's Eve. Of all the books I read this year, I think the one that gave me the most memorable pleasure was The Door, Magda Szabo. It was just outstanding in so many ways.
Books I read in 2018 (in the order I finished them):
A Month in the Country, J.L. CarrThe Bread of Those Early Years, Heinrich BöllA Man's Head, Georges SimenonJames J. Hill: A Brief Biography, Stewart HolbrookThe Women at the Pump, Knut HamsunJulian, Gore Vidal (<- re-read)Selected Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant (<- Penguin classics collection)The Door, Magda SzaboTropic Moon, Georges SimenonWhat the Dormouse Said, John Markoff (<-a silicon valley 'history')The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben (<- botany)A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor (<- memoir)Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Willa CatherA Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889, Frederic MortonLife of Alfred the Great, Asser the Monk (tr. Keynes)Another Country, James BaldwinJourney Into the Past, Stefan ZweigConquest of Constantinople, Geoffroy de VillehardouinNature, Man and Woman, Alan WattsThe Dud Avocado, Elaine DundyEmma, Jane Austen (<- re-read)The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles Mann (<- global warming debate)Around the World in Seventy Two Days and Other Writings, Nellie BlyThe Price of Admiralty, John Keegan (<- military history)Barchester Towers, Anthony TrollopeKitchen Confidential, Anthony BourdainAucassin & Nicolette and Other Tales, trans. Pauline Matarasso (<-Penguin Classics)The Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery (<-natural history of a sort)Democracy Reborn, Garrett EppsZen and the Birds of Appetite, Thomas Merton (<- essays)The Aran Islands, J. M. Synge (<- re-read)The Golden Spur, Dawn PowellThe Grand Babylon Hotel, Arnold BennettWatership Down, Richard AdamsMasters of Atlantis, Charles PortisGorgon, Peter D. Ward (<-about Permian mass extinction)Troilus and Criseyde, Geoffrey ChaucerTuring's Cathedral, George DysonThe Stalin Front, Gert Ledig The Gate of Angels, Penelope Fitzgerald Maigret Gets Angry, Georges SimenonThe Little Nugget, P. G. WodehouseUnder the Glacier, Haldor LaxnessThe Sicilian Vespers, Steven RuncimanA Time to Be Born, Dawn PowellThe Wet Engine, Brian DoyleRaffles, Maurice Collis (<- a biography)Excellent Women, Barbara PymThe Saga of the Volsungs, translator: Jesse Byock Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, Thomas MannFair Play, Tove Jansson Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay
Books I started, read about a third, but did not finish:
Crashed, Adam Tooze (->about the serial financial crises: 2008-2018)Stoner, John Williams
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 24 December 2018 20:06 (five years ago) link
The Door really is remarkable.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 11:04 (five years ago) link
38 or so, including some graphic novels and omitting some other graphic novels for no particular reason. Can't post them all because I'm on my phone but the top two were probably
Les MiserablesThe Iron Heel
― koogs, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 12:23 (five years ago) link
Cannery Row too
and The Martian, which felt a lot like A C Clarke's Fall Of Moondust or similar.
― koogs, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 15:24 (five years ago) link
Stoner, John Williams
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, December 24, 2018 1:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
noooooo
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 17:39 (five years ago) link
I bought 6 Jeeves and Wooster books I haven't read or 50p each, so that'll do me until new year.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Thursday, 27 December 2018 16:08 (five years ago) link
surprised you didn't like Crashed, Aimless
― flopson, Thursday, 27 December 2018 18:23 (five years ago) link
It fell at an awkward moment when I didn't have the attention or stamina for it.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 27 December 2018 18:25 (five years ago) link
Yeah it’s pretty brutal
― flopson, Friday, 28 December 2018 06:14 (five years ago) link
ive heard rumours t0oze is gonna get #MeToo’d
― flopson, Friday, 28 December 2018 06:20 (five years ago) link
A pathetic year, if you discount Asterix and books abandoned (I will finish the Lispector story collection before 2020 is out):Michel Tournier - The Erl King. John Preston - A Very English Scandal. Samanta Schweblin - Fever Dream.Ottessa Moshfegh - Eileen.Hannah Arendt - Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ottessa Moshfegh - Homesick for Another World.PG Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.Christopher Hill - The World Turned Upside Down.Brian Phillips - Impossible Owls.Yukio Mishima - The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea.
Of this lot, the Erl King was the most intense, Eileen had the most powerful single image (frozen vomit) and Wodehouse had the best dialogue ("Blast all vegetables!").
― calumerio, Friday, 28 December 2018 13:53 (five years ago) link
I've read The Door this year as well, but couldn't accept the whiny narrator's near-religious obsession for Emerence, who was a very human character after all, a force of nature with qualities and flaws. The relation between them also became excessive or overdramatic in the climax. I do like books with dog characters (the Bulgakov <3 <3 <3).
― Nabozo, Friday, 28 December 2018 14:28 (five years ago) link
Calumerio, if you started the year with Erl King I can see why you'd need some time to recover from the PTSD
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 29 December 2018 00:24 (five years ago) link
Yes, with hindsight, a string of Wodehouse should have followed, as a mental sorbet. I think Fever Dream and Eileen felt mild in a way that they would otherwise not have.
― calumerio, Saturday, 29 December 2018 11:51 (five years ago) link
My year probably best summed up by the fact that early on I started diligently updating a goodreads page for 2018, but it hasn't been updated since June lol - so everything after the koja anthology is from memory or from my audible history
Thomas Bernhard, CorrectionMiranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than YouMaggie Nelson, BluetsTrey Ellis, PlatitudesRay Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451Sylvia Plath, The Bell JarWilliam S Burroughs, JunkyLidia Yuknavitch, The Book of JoanJennifer Egan, Look at MeJoanna Walsh, VertigoChris Petit, The Butchers of BerlinJG Ballard, The Unlimited Dream CompanyRichard Matheson, I Am Legend*Paul Beatty, The SelloutRobert McCrum, Every Third ThoughtOttessa Moshfegh, EileenStephen King, Gwendy’s Button BoxJoe Hill, The FiremanStephen King, Lisey’s Story (audiobook)Stephen King, Duma Key (audiobook)Jack Ketchum, StrangleholdJack Ketchum, Off SeasonJack Ketchum, The Girl Next DoorJack Ketchum, The LostJames Joyce, DublinersElena Ferrante, My Brilliant FriendMark Frost, The List of SevenStephen King & Joe Hill, In The Tall GrassStephen King, The Outsider (audiobook)Toast on Toast (audiobook)Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashōmon and other storiesDavid Peace, Patient XLeïla Sebbar, Confessions of a MadmanGabriel Zaid, So Many BooksDavid Lynch, Room to Dream (audiobook)Gyula Krúdy, SunflowerAlice Munro, Dear LifeJoy Williams, 99 Stories of GodJack Ketchum, OffspringLydia Davis, Collected Stories (unfinished, had to go back to the library)Kathe Koja (ed), Year’s Best Weird Fiction 2 (unfinished, couldn’t be arsed)Stephen King, The Tommyknockers* (audiobook) Stephen King, either Skeleton Crew or Nightmares and Dreamscapes* (audiobook, on youtube when I was off sick)Limmy, That’s Your Lot (audiobook)John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes* (audiobook)Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five* (audiobook)Stephen King, Full Dark, No Stars (audiobook)Stephen King, The Talisman* (audiobook)HP Lovecraft, Necronomicon (audiobook of his complete stories, think I’d read about half before)Thomas Bernhard, YesCristina Rivera Garza, The Iliac CrestArthur C Clarke, 2001: A Space OdysseySarah Manguso, 300 ArgumentsJoe Hill, NOS4R2Olivia Laing, The Lonely CityStephen King, ElevationOttessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and RelaxationShirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill HouseRamsey Campbell, Strange CompanionsStephen King, The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger*Stephen King, The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (Revised Edition)Stephen King, The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three*Stephen King, The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands*Stephen King, The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass*Stephen King, The Dark Tower V: The Wolves of the Calla* (might stop at this one idk)Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre*Mark Sinker (ed), A Hidden Landscape Once a Week (about halfway through this, expect to finish it at some point on Jan 1st)
Asterisks indicate rereads as per ilx film thread convention (but, confusingly, not ilx this thread convention). Worst were the McCrum and some of the Kings & Ketchums, most of the rest I liked or loved
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Monday, 31 December 2018 13:28 (five years ago) link
Add to my tally:Jane Austen - Pride and PrejudiceJerome Jerome - Three Men in a BoatP. G. Wodehouse - Uncle Fred in the Springtime
And I picked up the second Folio classique volume of Comte of Monte-Cristo and that's what I'm reading.
I expected to really love Jerome but had trouble keeping my eyes on the page. Maybe I was just tired.
― jmm, Monday, 31 December 2018 16:15 (five years ago) link
I read about 105 books in 2018, including a few second or third reads (The Waves), but these five new ones were best.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 31 December 2018 16:37 (five years ago) link
― jmm, Monday, 31 December 2018 16:15 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i love my reading, i could watch it all day etc
― imago, Monday, 31 December 2018 18:31 (five years ago) link
Christopher Barzak - The Love We Share Without KnowingPhilippa Pearce - Tom's Midnight GardenJaroslav Kalfar - Spaceman of BohemiaDavid Zindell - NevernessThomas Tryon - Harvest HomePaul Theroux - The Great Railway BazaarPaul Park - Soldiers of ParadisePaul Park - Sugar RainPaul Park - The Cult of Loving KindnessPenelope Lively - Going BackM. John Harrison - Viriconium NightsM. John Harrison - In ViriconiumH. P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Out of TimeH.M. Hoover (RIP) - The Shepherd Moon
I gave up on Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia (stodgy/sexy Thoreauvean utopia) after 467 pages, but I might force myself to finish it in 2019. the sunk cost fallacy is a powerful motivator
― v. s. rupaul (unregistered), Tuesday, 1 January 2019 02:52 (five years ago) link
This is all the fiction I read in 2018. Bolded titles are especially recommended. Some of the Dutch and German books haven't been translated in English, but I translated their titles for easier reading:
Gerard Reve, Werther NielandDavid Mitchell, Cloud AtlasMartha Batalha, The Invisible Life of Euridice GusmaoGeorges Perec, A Man AsleepVerna B. Carleton, Back to Berlin: An Exile ReturnsJenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, GoneMaarten van der Graaff, Worms and AngelsNikos Kazantzakis, Christ RecrucifiedJason Matthews, Red SparrowJane Harper, The DryMaurits Mok, The UndergroundJason Matthews, Palace of TreasonFrank Martinus Arion, Double PlayDennis Lehane, Since We FellGraeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody ProjectStefan Brijs, The Angel MakerDan Simmons, Song of KaliPhilip Roth, The Plot Against AmericaRobert Franquinet, QuicksandSadeq Hedayat, The Blind OwlJuli Zeh, UnterleutenShirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill HouseJames Herbert, The FogT.E.D. Klein, The CeremoniesFrans Coenen, Sunday RestSimon Vestdijk, Mr. Visser's Trip to HellMaylis de Kerangal, The HeartJoost Zwagerman, Gimmick!Peter Terrin, Post mortemStuart Turton, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn HardcastleA.J. Finn, The Woman in the WindowGerard Reve, The Evenings
― ArchCarrier, Tuesday, 1 January 2019 15:05 (five years ago) link
only 1 more than last year...
As I Lay Dying — William Faulkner Julia and the Bazooka — Anna KavanFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House — Michael WolffNature Documentary: Poems — Noah Cicero Solaris — Stanislaw Lem McGlue — Ottessa Moshfegh Steps — Jerzy Kosinski The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin Twelve — Nick McDonell An Expensive Education — Nick McDonell Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change — Tao LinAll About Love: New Visions — bell hooks Natural Causes — Barbara Ehrenreich The Breast — Philip Roth The Seagull — Anton Chekhov I Married a Communist — Philip Roth My Year of Rest and Relaxation — Ottessa MoshfeghRoom to Dream — David Lynch and Kristine McKenna The Chapo Guide to Revolution — Chapo Trap HouseF*cked — Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson The Ghost Writer — Philip Roth Fear: Trump in the White House — Bob WoodwardJane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë The Zap Gun — Philip K. DickIn the Blink of an Eye — Walter MurchIf Beale Street Could Talk — James Baldwin That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound — Daryl SandersI Might Regret This — Abbi Jacobson Notes on the Cinematograph — Robert Bresson The Red and the Blue — Steve Kornacki The Elementary Particles — Michel Houellebecq
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 03:42 (five years ago) link
I can remember reading, for the first time:
Paul Beatty, THE SELLOUTJonathan Lethem, MORE ALIVE AND LESS LONELYJonathan Lethem, THE FERAL DETECTIVEJonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak (writers), OMEGA: THE UNKNOWNHenry Roth, CALL IT SLEEPTerry Eagleton, RADICAL SACRIFICEColm Toibin, MAD, BAD, DANGEROUS TO KNOW
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 13:24 (five years ago) link
All the above were good in their ways. Toibin the shallowest as a book, I suppose. Beatty a challenging blast. JL's occasional essays terrific. His new novel a return to form. His comic book thoughtful, artful, poignant. Roth the longest read but worthwhile. TE maybe coasting but can still make every other sentence an aphorism.
I might manage to read more books for the first time in 2019.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 13:27 (five years ago) link
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, December 25, 2018 9:39 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Mr. Jaq finished reading Stoner aloud to me on New Year's Eve. It felt a fitting end to a brutal year.
― Jaq, Thursday, 3 January 2019 00:33 (five years ago) link
Here's wot I read, with * for favourites and ** for super bingo classics.
No real disappointments, but The Hobbit was a bit of a letdown (classic first half, mostly tedious second).
Amber SpyglassFive Little PigsOffshore Exit West Faithful Place *The Jewish JokeMy Brilliant Friend * The Examined LifeThe Big Sleep **A Little History of PhilosophyWhy I'm No Longer Talking to White People About RaceLords and Ladies *The Pursuit of Love *A Sting in the Tale *Zuckerman UnboundLeviathan WakesThe SwitchLa Belle SauvageThe Three Musketeers **The Day of the Doctor *The Hot Rock Thunderball Asymmetry *Uncle Fred in the Springtime In a Lonely Place Manhattan Beach * The HobbitTraitorous Purse The Story of a New Name **How to Stop Brexit Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession Right Ho JeevesBetween Therapist and Client
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 3 January 2019 19:52 (five years ago) link
Wins - did you like any of the Ketchum books especially?
Unregistered - I'm very much looking forward to Zindell, Park and MJ Harrison, any thoughts?
here's mine
Isis & Corrick (editors) Drowning In BeautySebastian Wolfe (editor) - Little Book Of HorrorsRobert Aickman (editor) - Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories vol.1Clark Ashton Smith - Collected Fantasies vol.1William Hope Hodgson - Collected Fiction vol.1Farah Rose Smith - The VisitorFarah Rose Smith - The Almanac Of DustFarah Rose Smith - EvisceratorJayaprakash Satyamurthy - Weird Tales Of A BangaloreanJayaprakash Satyamurthy - A Volume Of SleepKarin Tidbeck - JagannathAliette De Bodard - The Citadel Of Weeping PearlsAliya Whiteley - The BeautyTanith Lee - Tempting The GodsMR James - Collected Ghost StoriesHP Lovecraft - Call Of Cthulhu (embarrassed how late I'm coming to some of these, I've had a lot of this stuff for well over a decade)
((nonfiction))Broderick & Di Filippo - Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010
((comics))Ibrahim R Ineke - Eloise
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 January 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
Also read about eight books I haven't finished yet.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 4 January 2019 20:01 (five years ago) link
I had much reduced year I think, probably down to a reduced commute and more other distractions. Most of these seem to have been read out in the park, during the very long, very hot British summer. I seem to have read virtually nothing from Jan-Mar and Oct-Dec.
George Eliot – MiddlemarchFilip Springer – History of a DisappearanceElif Batuman – The IdiotRobert Musil – The Confusions of Young TorlessDenis Johnson – Tree of SmokeEimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed ThingDan Hancox – Inner City PressureRoss Raisin – A NaturalJon McGregor – Reservoir 13William Gass – Omensetter’s LuckIris Murdoch – The Sea, The SeaAnn Quin – ThreeNicole Krauss – Forest DarkThomas Pynchon – VinelandOlivia Sudjic - SympathyJohn Updike – Rabbit ReduxRosie Snajdr – The Hypocritical ReaderGuy Gunaratne – In Our Mad And Furious CityWill Eaves – MurmurAlvaro Enrique – Sudden DeathTim Weiner – Legacy of AshesRichard Ford – The SportswriterMike McCormack – Solar Bones
― Matt DC, Saturday, 5 January 2019 17:05 (five years ago) link
how was Omensetter's Luck?
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 January 2019 05:23 (five years ago) link
it's been a loooong time but I remember omensetter's luck being an odd one in that he hasn't yet gone full pomo as he would in his later two novels, it's strange/"difficult" but in a way that's more in line with something like Faulkner - iirc the thing that felt the most gassian to me was the character names (that and the fact that he chose to set it in 1890s Ohio because it was a place & time he knew nothing about, and wrote it without doing any research lol)
Robert, I'd hesitate to use the word "like"; you realise pretty quickly that ketchum isn't really trying to scare you so much as make you feel sick in your soul from relentless hopelessness and ugliness. This is most effective in the extremely fucked up and sad the girl next door, apparently based on a true case; but even with something like off season, which from its schlocky urban-legend cannibal hillbilly premise (not to mention a bunch of hilariously gratuitous sex scenes at the start) seems like it'll be this fun gory survival horror but is just grim and stomach-turning in its unpleasantness. Or the lost, a very tight thriller of JDs run amok in the 60s that ends with a really disgusting and racist prison rape fantasy - I have a feeling JK's politics were probably quite reactionary from reading these.
Those three are all pretty good tho, but after a while I was like ok I pretty much know what to expect from this guy now: extreme violence committed against (or perpetrated by) children, a parallel narrative of a world-weary ineffectual cop who arrives too late to save the day, birching (this is just a weirdly specific thing to keep showing up again and again, it's a bit yikes) - and the writing quality gets worse in the later books I read. Stranglehold is atrocious, manipulative tripe.
His short story "the box" is really good imo.
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 14:38 (five years ago) link
Also, as usual I missed a couple of books off my list: I also read out are the lights by Richard Laymon and our house by louise candlish. I found the Laymon on the "take a book, leave a book" shelf in our launderette and got excited because it has the half-remembered story I posted about here and later tried to look up but couldn't find any evidence that any such story existed. Laymon's an "extreme" horror merchant but much sillier than ketchum, all action and dialogue, one-sentence paragraphs and massive type, you can read a book of his in a couple of hours. The Candlish was me getting suckered by marketing, it was promoted with the hashtag #THATlastline & I was curious. It was ok, ymmv depending on how much you care about the anxieties of homeowners, the last line was completely unremarkable.
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:11 (five years ago) link
I've never been in a hurry to read Laymon as he's particularly known for gratuitous rape scenes but I feel obligated to try a few.
Girl Next Door and Off Season are the Ketchum fan favorites (haven't read any myself). I really don't know much about Ketchum's politics but he isn't one of those writers whose fans swing right or left. There's a decent summary and biographical info in these links.
https://thebedlamfiles.com/commentary/jack-ketchum-1946-2018/https://thebedlamfiles.com/nonfiction/book-of-souls/
The first piece is “Henry Miller and The Push,” a memoir of Ketchum’s mercifully brief 1970s-era tenure as a New York literary agent, with clients that included his longtime hero Henry Miller. After pushing an old woman to the ground in a rush to catch a taxi, an act that shocked him as much as it did the woman he pushed, Ketchum became determined to quit his job immediately—but not until after meeting his idol face to face. The tale’s final pages lovingly detail that meeting, with Henry Miller registering as “a living fucking saint.” I’ve read other recollections of Miller that paint a far less rosy picture, but Ketchum’s claims are persuasive. Certainly his account demonstrates the enormous influence Henry Miller had on Ketchum’s life and writing, starting with the title of the book under discussion, which was evidently inspired by that of Miller’s BOOK OF FRIENDS.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:34 (five years ago) link
I never even heard of Ketchum until early last year when I went to this annual recital/birthday party given by a flamenco guitarist and he mentioned various friends who had recently passed including Jack Ketchum and Billy Joel's piano teacher Morton Estrin.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:45 (five years ago) link
I loved Omensetter's Luck, but yes it did remind me more of Faulkner than anything by Barth or Gaddis or Pynchon, which was what I'd been expecting.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 6 January 2019 15:57 (five years ago) link
I’ve told the “what fun do monks have?” joke irlXp I shouldn’t make assumptions about politics really as I know horror is often about pushing those kinds of buttons. Re ketchum’s career as an agent, didn’t he use that to get an author signed who turned out to be himself under a pseudonym or something?
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Sunday, 6 January 2019 16:05 (five years ago) link