Originally posted by Michael Moorcock
(Although I expressed a qualm or two about the idea at the time.) Ground rule is, I
think, to limit ourselves to a list of books we've read in the last 30 days and genuinely
liked. One hopes we'll manage to avoid thereby a complete listing of the participants'
libraries!
I'd add that it doesn't need to be the first time one has read the books listed.
To begin, in the last month, the following books gave me more than a modicum
of pleasure.
Little, Big, John Crowley
The synopsis didn't sound promising. The execution was a different matter entirely.
Crowley writes very well. A nice work to juxtapose to the Tolkien school of fantasy.
The Egoist, George Meredith
A discussion of Meredith in another thread got me thinking about this book. It's
witty, entertaining, and very modern compared to most of its contemporaries. The
satire and irony still bite pretty deep.
Washington Square, Henry James
My wife is a Jane Austen fan. I lent her this book, feeling that it partook of some of
the spirit of Austen's better books -- even if the conclusion isn't tied up so happily
as is usually the case for one of Austen's novels. My wife liked the book a lot, which
is saying something, since she rarely seems to like James's novels. I like the book a lot,
too, of course. ;) I could make a long list of books, stories, and novellas by James that
I really like...but this posting is limited to what I've read recently. :]
The Priest, Thomas M. Disch
This is a book in his Minnesota gothic series. It's been around for almost 10 years,
so it predates a lot of the furor that's been swirling around the Church recently.
I found it wonderfully black humored, and the writing is witty to the point of being
epigrammatic at times. I'm an admirer of what Disch can accomplish in prose, and this
book's another worthy addition to his canon.
The Devil is Dead, R. A. Lafferty
This book is a wild verbal romp. It sags a bit -- I found that Lafferty's approach seemed
to work better for short stories most of the time than for novels. The central notion is
typically looney tunes for this writer, and I'm not convinced he controlled his fancy
all the way through the book. Still, I laughed pretty hard, and overall liked it.
Other books were, of course, read, but those were the high points.
LSN
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