Year in Reading

I read more than usual this year because I was out of work for most of it. Also, it occurs to me that the paucity of books by women probably has something to do with my inability in understanding them. I'd say the top 17 are among the finest books I've read and it's not until 34 that I start pulling my hair out. In school I read a shitload of Angela Carter, fell in love with her despite her many unnerving qualities. Julian Barnes I learned to despise. Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is astonishing particularly when there's an expert telling you what you've just read. Carter's Shadowdance and The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman are brilliant. I would not hesitate recommending those to anyone, but I would have them brace themselves.

Number in brackets are in order of appreciation. Little blurb on each below.

A Fan's Notes by Fred Exley (8)
Palimpsest by Gore Vidal (23)
Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane (13)
Speak, Memory by Nabokov (24)
Pale Fire by Nabokov (aborted)
Bushwhacked Piano by McGuane
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (aborted)
Airships by Barry Hannah (9)
Emerald Blue by Gerald Murnane (29)
Gringos by Charles Portis (10)
Robert Lowell by Ian Hamilton (27)
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (34)
The Feud by Thomas Berger (12)
Wise Blood by Flannery O Connor (11)
Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy (5)
Vital Parts by Thomas Berger (1)
Treasure Island by RL Stevenson (32)
Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O Connor (7)
Nobody's Angel by McGuane (31)
Seize the Day by Bellow (35)
A Separate Peace by John Knowles (26)
Nothing but Blue skies by McGuane (19)
Watchmen by Alan Moore (31)
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow (2)
Americana by Don Delillo (37)
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (21)
Third Policeman by Flann O' Brien (25)
Life of Johnson by Boswell (33)
Glory by Nabokov (36)
Being Invisible by Berger (14)
Going Places by Leonard Michaels (6)
Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (15)
Bat out of Hell by Barry Hannah (20)
Who is afraid of Teddy Villanova by Thomas Berger (17)
Off to the side by Jim Harrison (24)
Mysteries by Knut Hamsum (13)
Tennis Handsome by Barry Hannah (2)
Best Friends by Berger (28)
Bushwhacked Piano by McGuane
Kangaroo by DH Lawrence (16)
Driving on the Rim by McGuane (18)
Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham (30)
Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark (22)


A Fan's Notes by Fred Exley
Not so much a shaggy dog story as a story about a shaggy dog, or a guy whose beard shares the same coloring as a sheepdog. Deserves a place alongside On the Road or whatever the establishment is calling the Great American Novel these days.

Palimpsest by Gore Vidal
Sublime memoir from someone who was in the moment in the 20th century. There's a reason Hollywood makes Forrest Gump instead of Palimpsest: no class.

Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane
McGuane does Chekhov; excellent story collection from a few years back.

Speak, Memory by Nabokov
I recall this memoir is great on memory, but I forget the specifics.

Pale Fire by Nabokov (aborted)
Second attempt and probably last at this irritating ridiculous spectacle.

Bushwhacked Piano by McGuane
I usually reach for the Bushwhacked Piano after a bad reading experience. It's my favorite novel and I read it once a year. This year I read it twice.

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (aborted)
Only read half due to personal trauma.

Airships by Barry Hannah
I read Barry for the pure pleasures of his wild man prose, or as Thomas McGuane once put it, 'the inventions of his moon-landing English." Short stories. See also Tennis Handsome.

Emerald Blue by Gerald Murnane
Murnane's a bit cerebral and at the time, I was in a mental fog, so the circumstances weren't great, but much to admire here.

Gringos by Charles Portis
Aw, one of my heroes. Once the snow melts I'd like to get down and see True Grit. Mind boggles as to what kind of movie would be made of this. Archaeologist/ bounty hunter in Mexico, not far from the US border, but far enough to be in the jungle surrounded by a ragtag bunch of eccentric ragamuffins: hippies, UFO chasers and others, all likely wanted for something. Did I say it was hilarious?

Robert Lowell by Ian Hamilton
Grueling, but I got through it and well worth the gruel all things considered.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Earlier this year, I wrote, “she writes well on grief, but there’s almost an overdose of Lorrie going on here. All the characters make Lorrie Moore jokes even the Arab. It’s like Jerry Seinfeld playing every character on Heroes or something.”

The Feud by Thomas Berger
Slapstick perfection.

Wise Blood by Flannery O Connor
There are scenes in this novel that are more realized in my mind than scenes from forties' noirs.

Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy
Sticky malevolent hustling in NYC slums, so poetic your heart stops. Really hard to believe Purdy will go there but he does. Angela Carter tries to go there and usually fails miserably. Will I read it a second time? I do not know if I will.

Vital Parts by Berger
Part three of Berger's brilliant Reinhart novels about a lovable/laughable overweight schlub, imagine a cross between Larry David and his friend Jeff. This time out he's embroiled in a cryogenics scheme with a playboy highschool buddy who was, by Reinhart's account, an overwhelming dildo in high school and Reinhart tells it straight, so you believe him. Reinhart needs a break in this life, but even that he might screw up. Cryogenics, really Reinhart? Loaned it to my sister-in-law Pam who enjoyed it for about five seconds.

Treasure Island by RL Stevenson
I liked it, but whatever, I was on an island at the time.

Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O' Connor
Sounds cliched, but without Flannery, American literature would not be what it is. Robert Lowell was convinced she was a saint. She died at my age. This came out posthumously and it's incredible.

Nobody's Angel by McGuane
Fascinates me for not being among his best. Written during a turbulent time in his life.

Seize the Day by Bellow
Disconcertingly stagey, I basically hated it.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles
One tender book. Gore proclaimed it profound on adolescent boy-lust. Just nod your head, kid.

Nothing but Blue Skies by McGuane
Contains my favorite scene in a novel involving cajun spices. And who could forget the barn party?

Watchmen by Alan Moore
Certainly impressive, I suppose.

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
My two favorite novels of the year concern enormous fat guys.

Americana by Don Delillo
Don should have stopped this after fifty perfect pages. Turns into X Files conspiracy thriller about the secret patterns of the number of holes in things. A pile of horseshit.

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Crafted to within an inch of its life and tighter than a Jerry Lawler headlock. This one kind of got the best of me. There's really nothing quite like it however.

Third Policeman by Flann O' Brien
Beyond criticism really. I desperately want to have a porter at the bar with him, but I can't because he's dead (highest compliment).

Life of Johnson by Boswell
I was hoping to read Johnson's dictionary as well as Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis, but I only read the Boswell, which I was so immersed in it at the Rose Garden this summer waiting for Tim to pick me up, I made him wait fifteen minutes, which is horrible, I know. The book is good, but not something to dick your friends over for.

Glory by Nabokov
The eighth chapter I remember being good, the first chapter is a close second. Couldn't tell you what's in-between other than an amusing comment regarding toothpaste and a noirish altercation at drunken gunpoint. This novel is an arrogant disaster.

Being Invisible by Thomas Berger
Very funny. Only flaw really is an excessive use of the word chagrin.

Going Places by Leonard Michaels
I like H's description of Leonard sitting on your chest while you're reading it. That said, it's orgiastic stuff, which possibly makes it even weirder.

Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
What does one say about this Great L.A. Novel? You don't say anything. You shut your stinking trap.

Who is afraid of Teddy Villanova? by Thomas Berger
A neo-noir from 77 that will never be caught up with. In terms of going whole-hog with miraculous language, this is a tour de force. Angela Carter's Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman is also one and also a drug novel, which this may be too.

Off to the side by Jim Harrison
Wise memoir. Jim has a ranch on the Arizona/Mexican border, but he does not accept drop-ins. There's an essay on flunking grad school and his aversion to linguistics. I was signed up for linguistics at the time and promptly dropped it. Thanks Jim.

Mysteries by Knut Hamsun
Brilliant variation on the stranger in a small town theme. This fellow wears a yellow suit and exhibits fantastic eccentricities. Recalls original thinkers such as the nihilist in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, but way weirder.

Tennis Handsome by Barry Hannah
In my workshop we were asked to bring in a piece of fiction. This is what I brought and this is what I said: “What I love most about reading Hannah is you don't know where his next sentence will take you. He uses non sequiturs that have their own weird logic. His prose style is really musical and the compression in his sentences makes even a relatively short novel like this one, quite dense. We were first introduced to The Tennis Handsome in a short story called Return to Return that was included in 1978's Airships. French Edward is the Tennis Handsome, a golden ale locked manchild sculpturally blessed like Michelangelo's David whose immortal grace on the tennis court hypnotizes a nation into a bunch of droolers fixated on the TV. French is the toast, accidental pun, of Vicksburg, Mississippi and there haven't been many of those. We also get French's filthy manager Baby Levaster, Dr. Word, his horny old demented bi-curious coach and Vietnam vet Bobby Smith, but Bobby doesn't appear until later. The Tennis Handsome has a non-linear form, sixteen chapters flashing forward and back over a 40 year-period, taking in a couple of wars, but mainly documenting these bizarre characters orbiting around French Edward.” My teacher kindly informed me afterwards that Barry had once thrown a knife at her head.

Best Friends by Thomas Berger
A cataclysmic turn-of-events to keep you on the edge-of-your-seat and in an entertaining panic, just the way you like to sweat your literary aerobics.

Bushwhacked Piano by McGuane
Reread this for a personal essay I was writing in Lit Studies. As good as ever!

Kangaroo by DH Lawrence
I loved the story of RL Somers' self-administered exile to the obscure coast of New South Wales and his fear of sodomy that restricted him from being “mates” with the homoerotic ex-serviceman of the RSL.

Driving on the Rim by McGuane
"It's been a wonderful life. I wish I understood it." I really need to get in touch with him as his last two books have been about preparing to die and if this is his last novel, then a load-bearing wall I require for my strength will have tumbled. This one has a great scene about serving hot dogs in impromptu fashion.

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
Good, but did I miss something that compelled SJ Perelman to call it one of only two successful comic novels written in his era?

Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
This book was amazing. I can see the influence on Angela Carter, who's a similar tough-minded broad (pardon the slur ladies; it's my forties gumshoe parlance).

Year in Reading

I told De Campo to look real purdy whilst reading Fred Exley's gut-wrenching 'A Fan's Notes' on vacation and dammit if she don't pull that off right good

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (35)
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte (34)
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West (3)
Hunger by Knut Hamsum (8)
Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante (21)
Untitled by Gavin Butler (22)
Cadence of Grass by Thomas McGuane (9)
The Savage Detectives by Bolano (33)
Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (20)
The English Major by Jim Harrison (19)
Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? by Stephen Cummings (29)
Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford (24)
Sport and a Pastime by James Salter (30)
The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane (5)
Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison (27)
House on its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett (18)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (6)
Aja by Don Breithart (31)
Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane (14)
Old School by Tobias Wolff (26)
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (7)
Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore (25)
Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis (28)
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (13)
Sam Fuller by Nicholas (32)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (23)
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (12)
Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse (17)
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson (11)
Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (10)
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates (2)
The Lazurus Project by Alexander Hemon (25)
True Grit by Charles Portis (4)
Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan (15)
Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah (16)

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
A second-hand account of a ludicrous character. My feeling is that this novel that took Diaz eleven years and won the Pulitzer Prize shouldn’t have been written.

Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
A sarcastic bag of lame.

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanel West
Short and sharp. After the shitty start, I needed to regain my reading rhythm and what better read than this dependable masterpiece. Gets a little darker and a little less funny each time, but it’s considerable genius festers inside me, haunts me down, gets in my dreams. Wow.

Hunger by Knut Hamsum
This actual Nazi was a favourite of Fante and Bukowski, they themselves starving writing non-Nazi’s. What I loved most about it was how the Hungry could go from euphoria to despair in the space of one paragraph. Hamsum was really keyed into man’s fragile mental state in a world gone mental. How a gust of wind could turn a lovely day reading the newspaper at the park into a risible state of outer turmoil under the most desperate of circumstances!

Wait Until Spring, Bandini By John Fante
A loosely autobiographical novel about growing up in Twenties small town Colorado. A young Fante imagines his buff brick-laying Dad hooking up with a wealthy widow. Lays more than bricks for her. Heartbreaking.

Untitled/unpublished by Gavin Butler
A loosely autobiographical novel about waking up in Canberra in the foetal position and going ‘Dude, I’m a 40 year-old public servant.’ Brims with a fierce hilarious anger reminiscent of Amis. Birthday milestone prompts a reflection on growing up on punk rock. Includes some of the best, brazen, most satirical attacks on pompous ex punkers and the journalists who get a woody over them. Plus some original thoughts on pop cultures’ “thinkers” — you know the guys who spend Mondays around the photocopier discussing the latest middlebrow horror from Africa. This book has it all - even a three-dimensional female character. Even though the main guy is a little unsympathetic you get over that when the style and humour is this good. But who will ever get to read it? Appalling that this book is not fought over by Australian publishers so the people can get on with reading it and raving about it.

Cadence of Grass by McGuane
Among McGuane’s very best. Word of warning though: there’s a soporific scene early on that goes on forever describing the repetitive work of a cowboy. Bored shitless from it, I looked into it out of curiosity and found that that scene fulfils McGuane’s interest in the Zen-like methodology of Japanese literature. Personal points awarded for creating a gigantic transvestite farm-hand who lives with his parents and has a penchant for cranking Beefheart in his bedroom. The book closes with a haunting tone poem/elegy to the cowboy that seems to reside more on the astral plane than the Montana soil it makes footprints in.

The Savage Detectives by Bolano
A new voice in literature, but also an infuriating one.

Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Touching novella beautifully told. Does to suburban LA what Yates and Cheever did to those places in Connecticut.

The English Major by Jim Harrison
Top shelf Harrison.

Will it be funny tomorrow Billy? By Stephen Cummings
Memoir by local rock and roll singer about his new wave meltdowns. Talented writer who goes next level when he goes unhinged, but then he tends to upset a lot of people. Still probably worth it. The writing about touring the US should at least be anthologised.

Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford
In slimy tropical 1970’s Miami, a devilishly opportunistic art critic plots an elaborate scam on a legendary French painter who’s been silent for years. Seriously creepy pulp by a master of the form.

Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Strange novel about relentless, imaginative sex in Paris. Chilling in parts.

The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane
McGuane’s debut is a literary pissing contest tour de force if that makes sense. Not for girls.

Returning to Earth by Jim Harrrison
Three perspectives centred around a 45 year-old Native American father dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Richness and humour of life one moment, gently preparing you for death, the next.

House and its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett
Burnett’s known for putting her sting on the English aristocracy and does so brilliantly here. Her dialogue is deliciously ironic.

Middlemarch by George Eliot
An entire world is encased in this massive marvel.

Aja by Don Breithart
Fun read about the inner workings of Steely’s celebrated album.

Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane
My hero with another solid effort.

Old School by Tobias Wolff
A private school with literary prestige holds writing competitions for the chance to pal around and pick the brains of visiting writers: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, Ernest Hemingway, et al. Terrific premise that in retrospect perhaps tries to do too much.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Flawless head-spinning evisceration of middle-class pretensions.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Modern guy working Yates’ territory very well.

Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
Most exceptional thing about this book is I cried at the end. Pretty wild given she’s best known as a comedian. A minor work.

Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Against all odds, the nagging surface level tedium of LA’s lost souls achieves a poignancy in this insidious first novel by the well-deserved writing star

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
There’s a race of people — although that designation is perhaps too generous — they-re stiffs, zombies; I don’t really see the point of them in this novel. They live in the woods off the coast of Northern California not far from where a lot of the action takes place. Are they information burn-outs? The book basically asks what if the hippies pulled a Rip Van Winkle on us and woke up in ’85 with Bonzo in the White House. In addition to the Thanatoids mentioned above, there are anarchists, ninjas, psychedelic and bubblegum and surf rock bands, hilariously bad TV show ideas, copious acid consumption and doobies galore. Bret Easton Ellis seemed to execute this theme a little better in Glamaroma, but Pychon’s artillery is so deep. A perpetual stoned belch of funky prose.

Sam Fuller by Nicholas Garnham
My only non-fiction read if you don’t count Didion and I don’t — too allusive. Read it in anticipation of the Sam Fuller retrospective at Cinemateque. Author makes gnarly claims to Fuller and Norman Mailer to being all but separated at birth.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
The heavily medicated California in Less than Zero was seemingly hi-jacked straight from the pages of this collection, particularly the titular essay about nomad teens in Haight-Ashbury around the time their vibe got crushed by dystopian come downs, bad acid, paranoia and whatever.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Even non-tokers cant help feeling a little baked trying to keep up with Pynchon’s steady stream of wacky characters. It’s actually not a whole lot of fun trying to keep up with all of them, there are possibly too many to begin with. However I totally dig Pynchon’s anthropology of early 70s LA surf culture and genre-aping pulp. Contains the funniest anecdote ever about a giant burrito.

Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse
P.G.’s pitch-perfect prose has a parade on Hollywood and it’s preposterously hilarious.

Cooking with Fernet Branca James Hamilton-Paterson
Dazzling comedy. Could lose the whole spy angle though.

Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Indoor types, pasty shut-ins rather, attempt to cure their vague malaise by boating up the Thames. Funny as hell with a suppleness of prose.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
The best short stories I’ve ever read.

The Lazarus Project by Alexander Hemon
Originally from Bosnia, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992 and then when Bosnia went under siege he got stuck there. Picked up English and has since written a number of books in it. Has some cool ideas. This one is a about a writer, a Bosnian expat in Chicago, researching this Lazarus feller, victim of an unlawful murder at the hands of the police chief in early twentieth century Chicago. The writer traces Lazarus back to his home country accompanied by a bonkers photographer and learns who he really is. Fine meta-fiction. Dumps on Auster's work rather savagely.

True Grit by Charles Portis
Pays a kind debt to Huck Finn with a 13 year-old narrator whose precocity will knock your socks off. With a suspense-filled heroic finish.

Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
Fresh prose for 1964.

Captain Maximus (stories) by Barry Hannah
Swaggering short heavy stuff, except for the notes from the unmade Altman film at the end, which is swollen, tedious and hurty.

View last year's.

Loving the ladies

Lorrie Moore is back with a sweetass new short story about a whipsmart babysitter in the New Yorker (apparently she has a novel coming out in September). I bore into that sucker big-time last night after I finished Ivy Compton-Burnett’s incredibly kickass ‘A House and its Head’. This morning on the tram I started the badass 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot. Give it to me mama.

Year in Reading

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel on each.

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah (20)
Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman (26)
Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (1)
Norwood by Charles Portis (6)
Panama by Thomas McGuane (13)
Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger (2)
The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray (26)
Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (11)
The Loved One by Ev Waugh (29)
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (10)
Mao II by Don Delillo (28)
Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter (14)
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S Thompson (16)
Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson (17)
Anagrams by Lorrie Moore (5)
Like Life by Lorrie Moore (18)
A Cool Million by Nathanael West (20)
CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller (22)
Ask the Dust by John Fante (12)
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (24)
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (4)
Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane (3)
Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford (25)
Gulcher by Richard Meltzer (15)
Professor of Desire by Philip Roth (30)
The Summer he Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison (7)
The Boat by Nam Le (27)
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff (8)
Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane (9)
Black Postcards by Dean Wareham (23)
A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison (19)

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah
Very good novella about a doctor of questionable repute. Full of the trademark Hannah razzle-dazzle.

Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman
Didn’t finish it. Hell I lived it when I was 12.

Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
Mailer, in incendiary 3rd person, takes in a Vietnam war demonstration. Causes a ruckus. Thrown in the slammer. Even more than Hunter S Thompson, Mailer dishes verbs like fists, and his furious prose cuts through diamonds. Exudes a heavyweight literary scholarship that doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

Norwood by Charles Portis
Angel of a book with a knucklehead charm.

Panama by Thomas McGuane
The crawling out of the ass of frozen elephants now behind him, ex punk star Chet Pomeroy retires to Key West with a coke-affected brain that forgets simple things like what his dog’s name is and whether or not his Daddy perished in a Michigan fire. Wasn’t as good the third time through; still a fav though.

Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger
Comic immortality, set in Cincinnati, among the bureaucrats, thieves, plagiarists and Black Panthers, a town Mark Twain said he’d like to be when the world ends because it’s twenty years behind. Standing heroically amongst it all: Carlo Reinhardt.

The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray
Fascinating perspectives on life and art and getting old from the pen of the late playwright.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov
Slim and spellbinding. As I recall, the final scene in the dark is extraordinarily vivid and suspenseful.

The Loved One by Ev Waugh
Regrettable, as California must have been for Waugh.

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Biblical in its delicious spearing of celebrity culture. Loved it.

Mao II by Don Delillo
Didn’t work for me at all.

Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter
Funny borderline psychotic world of a platinum-selling comedy/singing duo. Narrator is the deadpan and his partner is the genius. Carraway to his Gatsby.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’71 by Hunter S Thompson
Thompson’s last great book. Mighty.

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson
Oral biography using Plimpton’s Paris Review technique (see also definitive books on Truman and Edie).

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
Lorrie writes the best brainiest, wittiest single women around. This one shall we say has an active imagination. Tells a lot of elaborate jokes ad the strike rate is damn near 100 per cent. Has drawn comparisons to Sally Bowles and I can see that.

Like Life by Lorrie Moore
More stories about bracing wit as tonic for life’s eternal disappointments

A Cool Million by Nathanael West
Inventive whimsy of misfortune befalls main character in his quest for bourgeois respectability

CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller
A reader-friendly Gravity’s Rainbow

Ask the Dust by John Fante
Starving for literary prestige in Thirties L.A.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Starving for stardom in Sixties L.A.

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Devil descends or rather ascends on Moscow in early Twentieth Century, terrorising literary mag editors, theatregoers, and accountants with elements of the dark supernatural. Accompanied by a seven foot jockey and an enormously fat cat with a cold black heart made of shit. On the ‘Amazing Race’ a few weeks ago contestants went to Bulgakov’s apartment as part of their scavenger hunt.

Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane
A second read of this ensured its entry into the echelon of my favourite books. Never would I have thought a novel about fishing guides could be so essential.

Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford
Reading this, I recall being struck by its similarity in style and thought to the Simon Gray diaries, only to discover, in these pages, that Beresford read it and hated it! Curiously indirect bit of self-loathing perhaps? This book is a classic.

Gulcher by Richard Meltzer
Series of short, random essays from one of my writing heroes.

Professor of Desire by Philip Roth
I hated this book!

The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison
I loved this book!

The Boat by Nam Le
Auspicious debut. First story is the piece de resistance, though I’ve yet to finish the rest.

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
Seriously great.

Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane
Wonderful book. The scene where Joe shows up to meet the lawyer covered in cologne samples and the reaction he gets is so priceless it had me laughing out loud on the tram. You really can’t ask for more than that first thing in the morning.

Black Postcards by Dean Wareham.
Like I needed an excuse to pull out my Galaxie 500 and Luna albums. As good as the Steve Martin book (another honest book about the implications of being an urbane artist), or any of Dean’s musical achievements.

A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison
Hillbilly rewrite of Jules & Jim. Narrated by cultured, reckless feller. Disturbing and heartbreaking.