Friday, August 31, 2007

Lazy doesn't even begin to cover it...



...but only when it comes to updating this blog...
Here's what I've read since the latest entry (chronologically):

A Hedonist In The Cellar - Jay McInerney

The Island Of Lost Maps - Miles Harvey

Birth: A History - Tina Cassidy

Hotel California - Barney Hoskyns

Haight-Ashbury: A History - Charles Perry

Borges e os Orangutangos - Erico Veríssimo

Bartleby & Co - Enrique Vila-Matas

The Paper House - Carlos Maria Domínguez

The Romanovs And Mr Gibbs - Frances Welch

The Dead Beat and the perverse pleasures of obituaries - Marilyn Johnson

A Gente Se Acostuma A Tudo - João Ubaldo Ribeiro

With Borges - Alberto Manguel

Pilgrim - Timothy Findley

Old School - Tobias Wolf

A Mother's World: Journeys of the heart - Ed. M. Bond & P. Michael

Great Dream of Heaven - Sam Shepard

New Yorkers - Cathleen Schine

It's A Dog's World: True stories of travel with man's best driend - Ed. C. Hunsicker & M.Goodavage

The Blue Jay's Dance - Louise Erdrich

Magic Bus: On the hippie trail from Istambul to India - Rory MacLean

Tales From The Cash Register

Eating The Cheshire Cat - Helen Ellis

Biodegradable Soap - Amy Ephrom

Bee Season - Myla Golberg

Life Studies - Susan Vreeland

Love Is A Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield

The Summer He Dindn't Die - Jim Harrison

One Sunday Morning - Amy Ephrom

To See Every Bird On Earth - Dan Koepppel

The Cat Who Came In From The Cold

Out Of Your Townie Mind - Richard Craze

The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon - Richard Zimmerman

Child Free And Loving It! - Nicki Defago

Families Of Two: Interviews with happily married couples without children by choice - Laura Carroll

My favorite reads are highlighted
For southern humour choose "Eating The Cheshire Cat"
For New York sophistication and romance, "New Yorkers"
"Old School" is the perfect, boarding school themed, fall book
I'm still reeling from "Pilgrim" - amazingly complex, learned, imaginative, surreal, athmospheric, hypnotic, detailed. This one is the gem of the list...
"Birth" and "Families" are pretty specific but I think most people can enjoy them: the first is a keeper for the honest (and therefore, sometimes gory) history of what women have endured (there's just no other way to put it) over milenia in both pregnancy and labor."Families" should be required reading for anyone thinking of starting a family - in fact, they both should.
"Life Studies" is a collection of short stories that are art-themed, but where the protagonists are always on the fringe of the production itself: a painter's mistress, widow or daughter, a woman who chooses to model naked for an art class, etc. Divided into eras starting with mostly impressionistic artists I was partial to last stories in the book, set in contemporary times.
I have been wanting to read Harrison for a while and "The Summer..." was lot better than I imagined.