Life is rough, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Reading a good book can ease the burn and in some special
cases it can even help you savor the burn. For me it also helps me slow down my
thoughts and get out of my own head, which is good. My head is a cesspool where
people are mud wrestling giant snakes and alligators and the wrestling turns
into a strange coupling that is lubricated by pus.
Get me outta there, great authors of human history! None of
these books are 'new' and they are not rated in any order, these are just ten
great books I read this year. I hope it proves helpful or perhaps mildly
interesting. So without any further ado....
'Dirty Snow' by Georges Simenon
this one is pretty bleak but incredibly compelling. A
euro-noir tale in the style of Jim Thompson where you look through the eyes of
a young sociopath in war torn France. Pretty brutal, but perfectly told.
'Crime and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Most classics are 'classic' for a reason and this book has
earned that status a million times over. As grim as a lot of the subjects are,
I forget how much dark humor he puts in his novels. Don't let this one collect
dust and credibility on yr book shelf. Read this shit!
'The Woman in the Dunes' by Kobo Abe
A Japanese classic about an entomologist who gets stuck in a
strange
town in the depths of a sand dune where people are
constantly shoveling sand to keep their community alive. Truly weird and truly
great.
'Outer Dark' by Cormac Mccarthy
I have yet to read a bad Cormac Mccarthy book. This is one
of his earlier novels set in the south about a poor brother and sister who have
a child together. They split up and you follow them both through the backroads
and woods as she searches for the child and he just rambles doing odd jobs. I'm
not going to ruin endings but the ending to this book is INSANE.
'The Lime Works' by Thomas Bernhard
An incredibly original book that mostly dwells in the insane
inner monolog of an old man who just killed his wife in a huge abandoned lime
works where he lives and has been planning and failing to write a massive book
on the human sense of hearing. Great premise and a great execution.
'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte
They are classics for a reason! I was supposed to read this
book in high school like so many others but the lazy rebel in me just wouldn't
let it happen. Well, I finally read this Gothic romance classic (yes, I'll say
it again.) and it was a distinct pleasure. I've yet to read another love story
with as multi-faceted characters as Heathcliff and Catherine, and I am always a
sucker for books set in mansions that are in disrepair or in the bleak English
country side and this has both.
'Molloy' by Samuel Beckett
A stream of conscious style narrative about a decript old
man with a
bad leg and a detective that goes into the woods with his
son to track
him down. This book is incredibly funny and evocative. The
first in a three part series.
'Buddenbrooks' by Thomas Mann
This book covers four generations of merchant family in
Germany in the 19th century. Might sound boring but it's anything but.
Weddings, funerals, divorces, vacations, births, and revelations all well told.
Taking the wide angle and also zooming in to witness some deep human
disappointment in the parlors and salons of the wealthy.
'Black Dahlia' by James Ellroy
A delicious neo-noir that uses the real life murder of the
'black dahlia' as a springboard for a dark, nasty, detective story that keeps
lifting the veil to reveal more human depravity then you're likely to find at
your local bikini bar. Using the city of Los Angeles as vital and fascinating a
character as any in the book.
'The Stand' by Stephen King
I'm technically still reading this, so maybe it's a cheat
but I'm almost done and it's so good I had to throw it in here. Stephen King
might get a lot of shit because A. He one of the most famous writers in the
world and B. You can buy his books at supermarkets and they're accused
of being plain spoken 'entertainment' instead of 'art'. But most of the 'art'
that hits me the hardest is often of the 'low' comic book/b-movie variety so I
never have any qualms about opening one of his books. They're good and this one
is so so good. A massive story about a super flu that wipes out 99% of the US
population. The people that are left have collective dreams about a 100 year old
woman playing a guitar on her porch in Nebraska and about a very evil dude in
denim and cowboy boots with red eyes and no face. The old woman's people gather
in Boulder, CO and the evil dude's people gather in Las Vegas and other western
states. Eventually they have a 'stand' off.
Super fun, and compelling. Don't be intimidated by the size,
it so readable and dynamic that you'll tear right through it.
Well that's it. I hope 2015 is a great year for all. I hope
to be exposed to more powerful stories and with any luck a little bit of that
power will rub off on my own stories.
Thanks Greg!
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