a travelogue
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07/31/08
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Book:
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The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac Mccarthy’s first book may well be his best. Some the finest writing you’re likely to encounter in a contemporary novel — particularly the bits about landscape and the mountains of Tennessee. The Orchard Keeper isn’t as dark as some …continue reading »
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05/24/08
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Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
My first hands on with Borges… Absolutely amazing. So far beyond what I’ve been reading lately (mainly non-fiction and some late 20th century authors). As with Faulkner, I find it shocking that I was given an undergraduate degree in English …continue reading »
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01/31/08
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The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
I haven’t had a chance to read much lately, I’ve been busy writing, which is good I guess, but if you don’t read you’ll never be a very good writer. I knew a good Murakami novel would make me drop …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Book:
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The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford
Hands down the best American book of the 20th century. A bold claim I know, but I stand by it. There’s a great little essay on Frank Standford at Alsop Review “It was Lorca who noted that poets have to …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe
Oe’s writing, like Nike Drake’s music, is gets more and more powerful the quieter and more subtle his voice becomes.continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
“All forms of colour were dissolved in a pearl-grey haze; there were no contrasts, no shading any more, only flowing transitions with the light throbbing through them, a single blur from which only the most fleeting of visions emerged.” This …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
“I decline to accept the end of man.” — William Faulker in a speech to accept the Nobel Prize of Literature.continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Blindness by José Saramago
Saramago said, when accepting the Nobel Prize in 1998. “The possibility of the impossible, dreams and illusions, are the subject of my novels,” and I would basically agree with him. Quite possibly one of the darkest most disturbing books I’ve …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil
Weil published during her lifetime only a few poems and articles. With her posthumous works — 16 volumes, edited by Andre A. Devaux and Florence de Lussy — Weil has earned a reputation as one of the most original thinkers …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
I happen to love Murakami and Dance Dance Dance is a nice intro if you haven’t read him before. It’s fairly straightforward (for Murakami anyway), but still has those quintessential Murakami elements — a disaffected middle-aged man with enough quirks …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
What can you say about a book set in the sixteenth century that even takes a stab a matching the language of the day?continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Wonderfully mysterious and at times bizarre, Murakami is a master of peeling back layer after layer to lead you down the meanderings of his wonderfully mysterious and at times bizarre imagination. Nothing is ever what it seems.continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Campo Santo by W.G. Sebald
Sebald at his best: Death, destruction and memory obsessed over and exhumed in the light art, literature and nature, and, among other things, absurdity, paranoia and love.continue reading »
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09/09/07
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If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Amazing book that is somehow highly cerebral and yet still gorgeously written and has more soul than some James Brown records. A book within a book within a book… William Burroughs has a short story where a man starts off …continue reading »
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09/09/07
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Book:
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South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
Here’s a nice quote from a review: “In the heightened state of perception that exists just before the fall into adolescence, (for Murakami a place of sexual missteps and dark self-knowledge), where the slant of winter sun and every fiber …continue reading »