Talk, talk, talk....which isn‘t necessarily a bad thing, but there was little coherence or a through-line to any of Drndic‘s tales, except for suffering, which is perhaps the point. It is Eastern Europe after all. Her voice is unique and breathlessly chaotic, but her nearly fleshless, disembodied 1st person narrator never really let this reader in.

Master of the form. I read that it takes Eisenberg a full year to draft to perfection one of her short stories. Not all of them are hits, and many of her characters will drive you crazy, but they‘re entertaining, smart, and at their best, deeply moving. One caveat: if you need a plot, or even the bear bones of a narrative structure, then Eisenberg might not be for you. Her stories rely on situation and character more than narrative drive.

I loved these stories when they came out, but my much younger literati brother says Moore is now considered establishment and somewhat retrograde, and that I should move on, which only makes me want to reread her more.

Get into the heads of Prez, Duke, Monk, Charlie Mingus—maybe I‘m forgetting one or two—in these deeply imagined fictional memoirs of a few jazz greats during the 1950s. The thread is being on the road with Duke as he writes, talks and ponders. Sad, nostalgic feel for the lives he documents. Somehow sepia-toned. Dyer at his best.

Great recipe for Shepherds Pie within. “Don‘t be touching my Shepherds Pie,” Keith growls between gigs. Says that despite Mick‘s huge hands ;-) he‘s got a tiny “todger.” Keith is one of a kind...Thank God.

This one is always referred to as Wharton‘s “Jamesian” novel, which is kind of an insult imho. To me, it‘s Jamesian only in its relative interiority in comparison with Wharton‘s other work. But the sentences are free of endless clauses, and the writing is crystalline. A sad, beautiful book. If you can‘t get into James, Wharton is the writer for you. Same territory, less of a hassle.

Undine Spragg. The heroine‘s name is reason enough to read this novel, one of the four great novels that Wharton produced imho; others being, House of Mirth, The Reef, and Age of Innocence. Custom is distinct for the success, however empty and short-lived, of the heroine‘s social climb. She‘s Lily Bart from House of Mirth, if Lily Bart had “made it.” Much needed indictment of the patriarchy, it left me disenchanted as opposed to heartbroken.

For the nine or ten of you out there interested in the history of American public schooling in cities, this is the scholarly but highly readable narrative history for you. More focused and circumscribed than Diane Ravitch‘s work, it‘s also a lot more interesting.

Like Melville in Moby Dick, Williams harnesses all of his epic/narrative powers in this condemnation of capitalism and the extermination of species for speculative profits.

More people should read this book. Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russel and G.E. Moore are the main characters. On the first page, Wittgenstein (Luddie) expresses his preference for Daffy over Donald Duck. Side characters include those in the Bloomsbury group like D.H. Lawrence. A long, sweeping sort of historical/philosophical novel, it‘s a novel of ideas, but with an actual plot. Highly recommended! Funny and kind of heartbreaking.

Speechless as to how inexhaustible in insights were Baldwin‘s essays. The man was a genius and a fighter. How he maintained his reasoned and monumental love for humanity so called is a mystery to me considering what he endured in the USA. His name should be mentioned alongside Montaigne and Emerson.

Of course it‘s great, it‘s Middlemarch. It‘s the world in miniature. My favorite Victorian novel by a long shot.

These uniquely intense and disquieting stories left me feeling on the edge of a precipice looking out over an endless void...but in a good way.

Acid tongue. Hilarious and educational if not sometimes a little petty, Vidal was one of a kind, and is sorely missed in these idiotic days.

Very funny and trenchant Victorian novel. Highly recommended.

A polemic more than a novel. Very broad farce meets Roth-like diaspora angst meets revisionist Zionist militant crankiness. Thin, kind of mean-spirited book.

Perfectly realized, like most of Nelson‘s work. This is a heartfelt and deeply affecting “memoir” about an unconventional family and the power of love.

Maggie Nelson works magic. This book disabused me of many of my undergraduate pretensions and preoccupations. Not that I don‘t like a lot of the art and artists that she takes to task, like Artaud, it‘s just that I never bothered to ask myself the seemingly simple question of why and how is cruelty somehow deep and primordial as opposed to say, love?

“The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month...”

A must-read in these p-noid times. This stuff has traceable roots, not that it helps any...

Indispensable. Before the catastrophe of the Alamo, Davy Crockett was a Tennessee state court judge who bragged that he‘d never read a law book. Prideful ignorance and radical stupidity is nothing new in the USA.

“I can barely recall the old house where I was raised ...down the long corridor, past the seven views of Rome, up two steps and down three, one entered the library, where all the books were in order, the lamps were bright, where there was a fire and a dozen bottles of good bourbon locked in a cabinet with a veneer like tortoiseshell whose silver key my father wore on his watch chain.”

”Open the heavy book. Why couldn‘t we have seen this old Nativity while we were at it?
—the dark ajar, the rocks breaking with light,
an undisturbed, unbreathing flame,
colorless, sparkless, freely fed on straw,
and, lulled within, a family with pets,
—and looked and looked our infant sight away.”

Best historical novel I‘ve ever read.

“Memory is a fight.”

Claustrophobic.

Gilbert Osmond is the greatest villain in all “Victorian” literature. Why is it so much fun watching a snake gobble its prey? Why is James so obsessed with renunciation? Why doesn‘t Isabel poison the b&$@rd and move to Monte Carlo?

Sad, sad book. Nobody is either good or bad; everyone is both. Fathers harm daughters in their so called good intentions gone awry. Yet Dr. Sloper is right, Morris is a fraud. Not evil, just mercenary and a fraud. Life sucks. Women are not free. Men are either noble or slackers. This is what people think but James manages to transcend and finds humanity in all.

You gotta love Anna, but the novel should have been called “Constantine Levin” bc LT seemed much more more concerned with him. Levin‘s “solution” to the problem of living seems prosaic in light of the 20th and 21st centuries. Agricultural bliss. I live in New York. It just doesn‘t ring true.

A cacophony of voices—I know, I know, polyphony!—but he wrote it like a pamphlet and that‘s how it reads. Left me totally cold. I love “novels of ideas,” and I know how FD is revered, but he‘s my least favorite of the Russians. And I‘m not a reader who insists on plot. His words lie dead on the page imho.

Totally unique and extraordinarily fun. Virginia and Leonard and Mitz wind up in Nazi Germany for some reason, if I remember correctly. My favorite of Nunez‘s many excellent books.

The dentist‘s son from Jamaica, Queens makes good in Tangier.

“Ah, to be 25 and to have written Buddenbrooks.”

Heady.

Mind-bending. I‘m saving volume 2 for my terminal diagnosis.