dresese

Recent books

I've been doing a great deal of reading over the past few years. Every work day I have about an hour and a half total time on the subway with nothing to do except read. So, I've read a great deal. Some recent highlights are:

• The New York Trilogy - by Paul Auster. I've been reading a lot of Paul Auster lately. It is some wonderful, strange, and beautiful stuff. This book is the strangest one of his I've read, and probably the most engaging (and sometimes infuriating) of his work. (Well, I've only read about 4 or so of his books so far, so I perhaps cannot make such a sweeping claim).
• A Man in Full - by Tom Wolfe. Also Bonfire of the Vanities. There were read, not out of a burning desire I had to read Tom Wolfe, but because they were available in the building library and were books I had actually heard of before. I found them both to be a quick and easy read. But is it any good? The writing style seemed a bit lacking, almost as if it were written by a teen girl with lots of exclamation points she wanted to share with the world, and a constant chatter of interior monologues. But despite the annoying style, I felt both novels had something to say, and told a story that said it in an interesting way. So, pretty good.
• Kafka on the Shore - by Haruki Murakami. Not, as you may think, a sequel to Einstein on the Beach. Instead, it is a novel about a teens search for... well, a lot of things. Very strange, sort of creepy, then peaceful, then also romantic, and then back to creepy again. I had no idea what the hell was going on with parts of this book. It's sort of a twilight zone episode crossed with a coming of age story. Even with the bizarre plot, or even because of it, it did turn out to be a pretty enjoyable book.
• Full Metal Jacket Diary - by Matthew Modine. I found this little gem in the library in our basement. It was a great read about the process of acting in a Stanley Kubrick movie. Not only did it have great tidbits about things like how F. Lee Ermey got the job as the Marine instructor, but had some excellent quotes by Kubrick on making movies. I don't think they'll have this at a library, and it probably doesn't have enough content to make it worth $20, so just find it in your local bookstore and thumb through it. I'd tell you to come on over to my building's laundry room, but this book has disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived.