Three more

Roberto Bolano – The Skating Rink
Eric Nisenson – John Coltrane and his Quest
Adolfo Bioy Casares – The Invention of Morel

The Bolano is excellent (of course), Nisenson’s Coltrane book was very good as well.  I was a bit underwhelmed by the Casares, but it was a very quick read.  It wasn’t bad or anything, just not quite the perfect book I’d been lead to expect.  Good though.

Two more

50 people who ruined football, by Michael Henderson – A+, grumpy old man reading for football fans.

Ross MacDonald, the Doomsters – loved it.  He really does see shades of grey rather than black and white.  Not up with Chandler but to me he’s better than Hammett.

Three more

Raymond Chandler – the lady in the lake (re-read).  Chandler’s best?   Everyone knows The Big Sleep because of it’s name and the films, but I would argue that this is a better book.  One of the Chandler’s that has it all.

Flannery O’Connor – Wise Blood.   Fantastic!   I like Jim White (the singer) and O’Connor’s his favourite writer, and it’s so bloody obvious.  I have the lovely Library of America complete works volume, so plenty more to come.

Ross Macdonald – The Drowning Pool.  Lew Archer’s not far behind Philip Marlowe.  This is good stuff.

Tally

I think that’s 41 so far this year.   Let’s see if I can get another 11 down before the end of December.

two more

Susan Jacoby – The Age of American Unreason

David Peace – Tokyo Year Zero

Couple of crackers. The first about dumbing down in America was a terrific, page-turning read.  The second, a sluggish juggernaut of misery, David Peace on fire.

Ross MacDonald – Black Money

There’s something excellent about noir-era California.   Here Ross MacDonald’s PI, Lew Archer, is on the case of a mysterious Frenchman who turns out not to be French and who has stolen money from various shady characters.   Great stuff!

Also read:  Christopher McDougall – Born to Run.  Which is about running, specifically long distance running, and includes much talk of strange Mexican tribes where people can run forever.  Great book.

Oh

Also, Carlos Ruiz Zafon – the Angel’s game

Loved it.  He has a way of doing this that allows you to ignore the fact that his plot has got way out of control.   Good, honest, fun reading.

two more

Why England Lose by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

Almost the best book on football I’ve read for a while, but only half of it really works and in the end I was left thinking that we’re still a couple of years off a genuine “this is how football works” book.   Close, and very good, but no cigar.

The Secret Life of France by Lucy Wadham

A terrific read. Wadham moved to France and brought up a family there, and in this excellent book tells us why France is like it is (to her anyway).   Really, really interesting – she’s not, like so many English authors writing about France – reliant on cliche and humour to get through.  This is a very deep explanation of many phenomena, and one of the best books I’ve read this year.

More again

Grant Wahl – the Beckham Experiment.   Pretty good. Easy read, fairly generic sports book in the end I suppose, but revealing and interesting.

Paul Auster – hand to mouth.  Good stuff.  And I’ve never enjoyed his fiction.   (this is his fairly brief story of living lean before making it as a writer)

Much else on the go, hence lack of updates – I’m at about p600 of Don Quixote, and have about five other bigguns on the go…

More

The manual of detection – Jedediah Berry

Bah.  I read a good review for this in the London Review of Books magazine, but in all honesty I thought this poor.  It’s sold as detective fiction, noirish, but the author has taken it upon himself to go all Kafka and also to employ lots of confusing dream sequences.   I am not often negative about books but on this occasion I feel the author was trying to be a bit too clever and more interested in pleasing himself than the reader.

The day of the barbarians – Barbero

Short history book, quick read, interesting stuff.   About the fall of the Roman empire and how they eventually stretched themselves too thin, ignored immigrant rights and eventually came a cropper.  I had no idea that there was a Barbarian tribe called Alan.   How about that?    I sometimes felt the author was contradicting himself and, while appreciating the short format, it did seem a bit rushed on occasion.  Still, good airport read.