library reserve

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean sounds interesting.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/89949-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-august-1-2022.html

Carlene Bauer’s GIRLS THEY WRITE SONGS ABOUT

Ambitious and talented, the two main characters let nothing stand in their way until they’re sucked into the Bermuda Triangle that is marriage, children and homeownership.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/books/review/porn-of-the-self-review.html

THE EDITOR'S WIFE by Clare Chambers

I bought Clare Chambers' The Editor’s Wife last night off AbeBooks for $16.31 (it's coming from Delaware, if the USPS does its job for a change) because it was never published stateside. Shame. Sounds interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/books/molly-young-recommends-books.html

SIREN QUEEN by Nghi Vo

I give this novel 2.5 stars out of 5. Didn't really like the anti-hero protagonist, but I think the author imagined readers being interested the heroine not liking her.

What was cool about this novel is the post Silent Film world that Vo created. I don't think she mentions any real world celebrities or power brokers in Hollywood, but all the archetypes are there: the king-like studio boss; the leading man the public doesn't know is gay; and the Siren Queen, a diva Chinese actress who is more ambitious than Katy Perry. That said, the supernatural elements were a bit much . . . if I was her editor, I would have had her tone it down because it distracted from the overall story.

Speaking of the story, it was pretty cookie cutter. What kept me reading was Vo's out-of-this-world prose — the chick can write!

INSOMNIA by Sarah Pinborough

Man, what a slog this novel was. Took me 10 days to read its 300 pages. Needless to say, I give it one star out of five.

The characters are really unlikable; and the plotting is so forced, it's like getting a prostrate exam with a lightsaber.

It's not surprising that Leisure Books published several of Pinborough's novels back in the day. Horror after the golden age of the 1980s seems to attract D list talent. Either they're imitating Lovecraft, or they're writing stories with wooden prose and cliched characters.

Insomnia. A novel so bad, it will put you to sleep.

library reserves

Maybe I'll reserve Alexis Schaitkin's Elsewhere (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/books/review/recommended-new-books.html) and Ellery Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/89878-10-most-puzzling-impossible-crime-mysteries.html).

Metric: Formetera

Well, disco's not dead. Metric's latest album proves it. Probably the last thing I'll buy by them. I liked when the guitar and synthesizer had equal billing, as in Live It Out and Fantasies; but ever since Pagans in Vegas, it's been 80% electronics.

I'm only keeping two songs on my iPod, the ten-and-a-half minute "Doomscroller", which I faded out around 5:40 and cut at 6:32, and "Enemies of the Ocean", which I probably dig because I'm a tree-hugger. The other seven tracks irritate me— sound like cannibalizing of Synthetica's "Breathing Underwater" and "Lost Kitten".

Kind of a bummer that Formetera is such a disappointment. It's such a regrettable purchase that I stopped following the band on Instagram. Oh well, guess everyone's gotta jump the shark eventually. . . .

TBR pile

Thought I would log when I bought books in my To Be Read pile:

• Comparative Politics Today (5-31-17)
• Forever War
• The Good Earth (1-5-18)
• Force of Nature (3-21-19)
• UFO in Her Eyes (5-25-19)
• Stalin (7-16-20)
• Full Dark No Stars (8-20-20)
• Dali (10-7-20)
• This Must Be the Place (2-13-21)
• Miracles of Life (7-16-21)
• The Last House on Needless Street (9-8-21)
• The Age of Decadence (9-8-21)
• House Rabbit Handbook (11-23-21)
• Frames of Mind (12-2-21)
• The Power Broker (1-21-22)
• The Outlier (2-11-22)
• The Bunny Lover's Complete Guide to House Rabbits (4-14-22)
• Sea of Tranquility (5-8-22)
• Washington (5-25-22)
• Space Merchants (7-7-22)
• The First Day of Spring (7-12-22)
• The Death of Democracy (7-12-22)

PiL playlist

Over the weekend, I got annoyed that Public Image Limited's greatest hits compilation had extended versions of three songs, “Rise”, “Home”, and “The Body”, so I downloaded “The Body” off Amazon, and got hold of the first two. Created a playlist, which now clocks in at 31 or 32 minutes versus 38 minutes of The Greatest Hits, So Far comp. Oh, and I was going to download the original version of “This Is Not a Love Song”, since the album version is on the comp, but it's not available online to purchase. I think Amazon and iTunes puts one version of a song on their servers and posts it across various albums.

library reserves

I'm not going to read, but the review of Katy Tur's second memoir, Rough Draft, is fascinating: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/books/review/rough-draft-katy-tur.html

I put Marina Warner's Esmond and Ilia on my B&N wishlist: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/books/review/esmond-and-ilia-marina-warner.html

I put Meghan O’Gieblyn's God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning on my B&N wishlist: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/08/books/review/paperback-row-10.html

Lina Wolff's Carnality and Lo Patrick's The Floating Girls might make decent library reserves: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/89771-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-july-11-2022.html

SCARY MONSTERS by Michell de Kretser

I give this novel 3 stars out of 5. I italicized novel because it's really two novellas in one. Cool gimmick how de Kretser and her publisher don't tell you which story comes first — you need to flip the book over to read the other novella.

I started with Lili in 1980s France. In hindsight, I should've written characters' names down and the page number they first appear (something I do especially with 300-page-plus mysteries where there are more names than at a teachers' workshop). I kinda lost the plot halfway through that story. Maybe it's because de Kretser is Australian, but her writing reminded me of Patrick White, who is the author of The Cockatoos, which The Cure did a song about. Part of the reason I make that connection is because one of Lili's neighbors, Rinaldi, and his girlfriend(?), Candlewoman. Was she a hallucination that Lili saw in window? I'm assuming Candlewoman was a metaphor, but of what?

Lyle's story was much more engaging. I liked how de Kretser satirized those that insist on going by the they pronoun with the character from the IT department. The whole story was really good of how Australia might be in 2040, up until about the last 7 pages. de Kretser totally lost me. Didn't know what was going on. Still, glad I read it . . .  not as good as Emily Bitto's The Strays, but nice to read something from Down Under that leans on the literature side.

OTHER PEOPLE'S CLOTHES by Calla Henkel

I give this debut novel 3 out of 5 stars. Was gonna return it to the library after 50 pages because I'm an old-ass man — I can't relate to club-hoppin' twenty-somethings. But Henkel's prose kept me around. Plus Berlin is one of my favorite cities.

library reserve

I put Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona on my Barnes & Noble wishlist; I didn't reserve at library yet. The review I read in the New York Times Book Review makes it sound good, but the reviews at the Guardian and, maybe, the Washington Post weren't so enthusiastic. I'll think about it for now. Got a bunch of novels to get through first from the library that are in my TBR pile. Really want to work on them so I can read some nonfiction, like J. G. Ballard's Miracle of Life, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Dmitry Volkogonov's book on Stalin, and Ron Chernow's biography on George Washington.