Movember 2010 and I am reading...

Me too, brother. I'm having a literary overdose at the moment. Now that i'm out of my reading slump there's all these books popping up. I can't keep up.

It's impossible to keep up with so many amazing books out there. Not just fiction - but non-fiction too.

I have four book cases filled and books stacked on books. It's impossible. I should go on that show hoarders just for my books. haha

Yeah I do.

I've done a lot of reading about Jack the Ripper. They are pretty much following along with one of the theories with a few of their own things added in. But the amount of research they must have done. They have every little thing perfect so far.

Now I can't wait to finish the book so I can read all of those annotations. I didn't even realize they were back there until you asked.

The best way to read "From Hell" is straight through once, and then to read it again while looking up the footnotes as you go along.

I'm sure I will end up doing that Jane. I tend to get obsessed with details like that. lol

Geez everybody loves graphic novels!

on a semi-related note, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is also a pretty good Graphic Novel, even though it's really just a 46-64 page one-shot, that also ties into the Jack the Ripper mythos. The storyline I'd say is just good/above average, but the Mike Mignola art will make you cream your jeans.

^^ I support this statement.

The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

Graphic novels wise, I really enjoyed the Y: The Last Man series.

I've heard good shit about this one. I'll have to check it out.

I could never get into Y: The Last Man. It was good for what it was, but it didn't ring my personal bell. Probably because I don't like apocalypse fiction in general.

Chris Deal was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, CienFuegos and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Also ploughing through Wishfull Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Damn that girl can write.

Persepolis, Watchmen, Maus, and From Hell. The first and the last are probably tied for my favorites.

I should really read Persepolis one of these days

Yes, it's very good.

I just finished John Dies at the End. I thought it was very good, a good mix of horror and humor. It did drag toward the late-middle, as furleyguy said back in the October post. It wasn't that bad, just kind of seemed like the same thing over again. But that was maybe only for a 50 or so page stretch and then it picked back up again.

I'm kind of excited that the movie adaptation seemed to actually be getting made. I just read that Don Coscarelli (Bubba Ho-Tep) is directing it and Paul Giamatti is going to play the reporter Arnie. Should be interesting.

Ive started an eerily creepy book. Under The Skin by Michael Faber.

This is exactly what I'm reading now too!

The Contortionist's Handbook

Clevenger almost wound up as one of those guys I'd wish people would stop prattling on and on about.

"So brilliant."
"Such a genius."

And I was so incredibly sick of hearing it.

Dermaphoria was what I ended up cutting me teeth on regarding his work, and I must admit, I found myself struggling through it and wondering what all the fuss was about.

That didn't stop me from picking up TCH when I finally found a copy for under $40, or more specifically, when MacAdam/Cage finally pulled their heads out of their asses and decided to give the book another print run. A movie deal and high demand can do that.

Nonetheless, my expectations were considerably low, and so the following read pertaining to an identity-shifting expert with an extra finger was that much more of a pleasant surprise. Palahniuk said, "...the best book I've read in five years. Easily. Maybe even ten years," and I'm inclined to agree.

Clevenger spins a web of lies and identity crisis so complex, it's a wonder that the reader doesn't get lost in the details of how to fake a birth certificate or SR-22, but the author never shakes you...not unless he wants to. In TCH, we see John Dolan Vincent pitted up against "The Evaluator" for his freedom after an overdose, the story alternating between this battle of wits, tells, and intellect, and the seedy past of this protagonist of how he came use a deformity to his advantage. It reads similar to Palahniuk: minimalist with loads of factual information regarding the trade of forgery (we've seen this before with Jack and explosives in Fight Club), but unlike the one and two-star reviews on Amazon where Clevenger is ostracized for being a rip-off, it's obvious to me that the author has made this style his own within the neo-noir genre.

Simply put, I see the influence, but nothing that would make me believe Craig wrote this thinking, "What would Chuck do?" And perhaps this is why his second novel turned out so different from his first...to distance himself from the name, the legacy, the style.

I wish he would return to it.

TCH is one of those books that when I put it down, I knew I'd read it again at least eight more times. I can't recommend it enough.

So glad you came around to him, Brandon. Unfortunately for you, his next book is probably even more far removed from that style. St. Heretic has multiple narrative threads, is in third person, has epistolary chapters. I think with Craig, he just ups the ante each time. TCH took him two years to write, Dermaphoria was 3 or 4 years and now Heretic has been 5 so far.

That's all a good thing, a very admirable thing, though. He's pushing himself to create better work, to write outside of his comfort zone, to never be the same. I guess he's a JDV of the literary world.

JDV?

Joie de Vivre?

Juris Doctor Vampire?

Jailhouse Diva Vincenzo?

John Dolan Vincent.

Bah!

Okay.

The Stranger by Camus. Well, tomorrow I'll start it, I suppose.

Too much bourbon in me right now.

The latest edition of Best Australian Stories. My creative writing teacher from the semester just passed has a story published it this year. It's a cracking little second person story. I love this collection. Every year I look forward to picking it up in Novemeber.

I'm still going with The Accidental, which I'm glad to say I'm enjoying more and mroe.

I've also picked up The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The Bible Code Part 3 by Michael Drosnin.

Really liked Under The Skin. Now reading The Dying Animal by Philip Roth.

Currently reading Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

I hear Depp and Del Toro in all the dialogue and narration.

"Did you see what God just did to us?!?!"

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson

I swear we read the exact same books all the time. I just finished reading Pop. 1280 a week or two ago. How are you liking it? It was chilling for me. Loved it. Can't wait to read more from him.

Probably my second favourite Jim Thompson after The KIller Inside Me. Check out the French movie version of Pop 1280. Its called Coup De Torchon. Ludwig was kind enough to send me it ages ago.

It's very good so far - I'm about a third of the way through. I read The Killer Inside Me a few months ago which I liked about the same.

Yeah, I more meant we seem to read the same books at the same time. We both read pretty similar books to a lot of people here, but I seem to be picking up a book, reading it, checking in here and seeing that you're reading it, or have just bought it, or whatever.

Good taste.

Piercing by Ryu Murakami.

I've been re-reading Infinite Jest for about a week. It seemed like a good time for it. It's better than I remembered, which is saying something.

I'm re-reading Fight Club right now. Also, reading Answer to Job by Carl Jung and The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. I have a short attention span so I rarely read one book at a time. It sucks.

Hempel doesn't really suit a short attention span, despite the majority of her stories being under 3000 words because they tend to invoke further thinking. I often ponder Hempel after I read her, sometimes for as long as half hour. But that's the beauty of her stories, in my opinion. They have so much going on beyond the words on the page. They deserve the reader to think about it on a deeper level.

I usually fly through short story collections. I can't do that with Hempel. I have to read a sentence and think about it. Sometimes rereading passages. It takes me twice as long to read one of her short stories as a normal one the same length. There's a lot to learn from reading her.

Couldn't agree more. Her observation abilities are freakish.

Hmmmm.... I will say that I love Amy Hempel's writing and I think her stories are excellent. That being said, I'd be lying if I said that the stories make me sit there and ponder for all that long. They definitely aren't making me think as much as Answer to Job (the non-fiction book I'm reading). Of course, I usually have to ponder non-fiction more than fiction (a definite exception to that being Blood Meridian, which kept me thinking about each chapter for well over an hour after I read it).

Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain. I'm liking it.

Derek - I haven't read that one yet, though it's sitting on my bookshelf as one of my next books to read. I loved Hearsick and Sweetheart.

She has a new Archie and Gretchen novel coming out called The Night Season. It's available for preorder right now.

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson.