briefer book reviews

(lots of smouldering drama in the small press world lately, thought i'd throw some kindling at it)

 

Monsterhuman by Kjersti Skomsvold (dalkey): read and enjoyed her debut book, which is a short novel about a scared/depressed old woman. this is a large (~450 page) autofictional book about an author named kjersti skomsvold writing, publishing, and struggling to write a follow-up to her debut book, which is a short novel about a scared/depressed old woman. style-wise this one is heavy on the insecure daily minutia and intrusive thoughts/memories of the narrator and vacillates between present, past, and future tense in a hazy way, merging her obsession with wanting to publish a book, writing the book, and actually publishing the book, referencing things in the future, referencing the writing of this book, and so on, creating a unique, i felt, throughline of expanding or contracting the anxieties of each moment in time. felt like a unique way to write but often not entirely gripping -- started out slower/more boring but then felt more interested once she started attending writing school(s), then less interested when she started studying literary criticism and working on the second book. i was still consistently curious throughout to see what would happen, but didn't feel like the writing style or voice was particularly engaging and instead relied on the plot to pull me in. i did notice and enjoyed a common refrain of referencing/subverting a cliched expression, similar in execution to another theme of people misunderstanding or confusing intentions/terms/expressions, which felt interesting, a cool way of showing, i think, the narrator's deep-set anxieties and lack of social awareness, and also to create humor. made me briefly yearn for the romanticized MFA-type lifestyle until i realized it is basically the same as getting a phd in another field, but perhaps worse. felt like, for as much as it emphasized writing honestly about everything, very little is actually shown/exposed regarding her relationship with Hilde and the guy at the end, which makes me wonder whether this book is as successful, ultimately, as it describes its own criteria for success. still enjoyed it, wished it had more knausgaard in it (she describes meeting him only very briefly, i think describing him as 'wily' or some other word similar to 'mangy'). have had no success figuring out who 'Hilde' is; would like to read her work (i tweeted about this to no avail, googled for a while, and DM'd dalkey archive, but they ignored me).

Goon Dog by Jon Berger (Gob Pile): have read and enjoyed stories by jon on the internet. these are mostly short, sam pinkian, plainly written slice-of-life stories about broke/poor people in michigan doing drugs, dropping out of community college, and fucking around. lots of cumulative heartbreak and looking for escape but with a fun emphasis on people getting (petty) revenge (usually against rich assholes). good descriptions of midwestern things that felt familiar to me, like winter slush and blue salt and shitty cars. felt like the book as a collection suffers from not being coherent enough, in that several stories redundantly describe the same places/characters/ideas, so the book functions as a compilation of similar stories and not so much a unified work; i considered throughout that it could have been reworked into a great, meandering, image-heavy novel. also felt like some of the stories ended too soon, where the content was effectively intended, i think, to convey a particular emotion related to a situation or experience, but includes a lot of backstory, setting you up for a longer story that simply seems to ends too early. more positively, some stories entertain fantastical/sci-fi things in a humorous way, which i considered fun and innovative for this type of writing, and often function as a form of catharsis. found myself laughing sometimes, grimacing other times. enjoyed the sequencing choice of the first story possibly being implemented to turn off some readers intentionally with its very graphic and fucked up deep wound and deep wound care scenes. laughed a lot throughout the bookstore slime story and thought the ending's phrasing was innovative, beautiful, and powerful. enjoyed the emphasis on humanity and empathy for characters and the direct, non-self-pitying description of negative thoughts/feelings. consistently enjoyed every story, would recommend. mad at bram for the C- copy editing.

Naive. Super by Erland Loe: a norwegian book in translation that christian utigard sent me. a short, 'droll' novel about a 20 something man facing an existential crisis from like 1996. a large amount of the book is spent summarizing other things, specifically a book about relativity/physics, television commercials, excerpts from emails/faxes, lists of things the narrator encounters/sees, and library catalog searches. feeling like its main selling point is its decidedly 'european/british' type of dry humor that doesn't appeal to me too much -- my main critique is in how he overworks the humor a little bit, although sometimes it still works pretty well. my other critique is the extensive summarization of other texts and simplistic/reductive plot, including the romantic interest subplot. felt interested in the book seeming 'uncomplicated' -- he faces a minor crisis, engages in self-directed healing, goes to new york and gains some perspective, ends up feeling ok and optimistic, the end. mostly enjoyed the short arc about hanging out with a kid and running errands. had a vague thesis pop into my head concerning gen x in their 20s in the late nineties and their relationships with brands and media, based on having read no logo at some point and the wikipedia article about OK Cola and this book's chapter dedicated to how the narrator loves certain brands, that i don't care enough about to write. wondering if the emphasis on brand loyalty and consumption is meant to be earnest in an 'acceptable' or earnest in a 'subversive' way. the last page of the book made me laugh a good deal, probably the best 'joke' in the book.

Fucko by Lucas Restivo (bullshit lit): traded books with lucas for this. he lives really close to where i used to live in somerville. collection of humorous poetry with emphasis on daily life/work at a restaurant. felt surprised by how 'normal poetry' much of it felt with poetic/complicated/evocative metaphor or word play (lines like "i was raised / to be beside myself") while it seems designed/marketed/promoted to be more conversational and 'fun/silly' (based on e.g. the title, cover, and excerpts posted on the publisher's website). enjoyed moments throughout -- lines like "good god i am so lonely / and swagalicious" remind me of roggenbuck in a good way. made me think more about what appeals to me in poetry, possibly more concrete imagery/ideas instead of more cerebral or linguistic things. felt curious about which printer the publisher uses, based on the feel of the cover/paper and lack of amazon kdp or ingramspark information on the last page. enjoyed that lucas's bio includes his venmo.

the boy scouts handbook from 1911: have enjoyed skimming through and enjoying both practical (and impractical) camping/adventure-related tips as well as early 1900s-era culture stuff, like the ideas for fun games for kids (several were variations on memorizing things and quizzing each other, others involve protracted methods of hide and seek). enjoyed learning that part of the requirements for earning the agriculture badge in 1911 was growing an entire acre of wheat. have found myself in general enjoying the niche topic of "plainly written handbooks about how to live" that include things like how to bathe and brush your teeth, which i've seen in this and other old books. this one includes a comical page about not jerking off because it prevents your semen from going into your blood(?). haven't read in its entirety, probably will never, but will probably enjoy skimming it further. would enjoy playing a particular game based on cockfights, where you have to hold broomsticks with your knees and elbows and knock the opponent out of a ring, or something.

room temperature by nicholas baker: bought this used because crow has recommended him often. read the first two pages while peeing/brushing my teeth, thought "this is a lot of adjectives and adverbs" while confusedly trying to visualize a sweater, and put it on my bedside table four days ago. if i'm being truly honest with myself, open to my own whims and passions in this brief, ludicrous life of mine, then i should admit that i will most likely not continue reading.

(haha, tricked you, you drama-seeking bitch)

briefer book reviews

made myself laugh imagining adding an epigraph to this blog post

 

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Karabata: bought this after enjoying The Lake. it's a short, strange domestic drama centering on traditional japanese tea ceremonies. felt like i wasn't able to understand most of the subtext or social cues for lack of knowing anything about traditional japanese tea ceremonies or the state of japan when it was written; the author is quoted as confirming that it's about some conflict between the contemporary world and the world represented by the traditional tea ceremonies. but i enjoyed the prolonged discussion/description of centuries-old tea bowls and other objects. felt curious about the intentional repetition of certain phrasing and images throughout. enjoyed the emphasis on sex, especially the guy having sex with this girl's mom. felt dumb/racist at feeling like there was a strong sense of 'haiku'-like imagery/description throughout.

Live my Lief by Steve Roggenbuck (self releases/boost house): never read any of his writing before, i think. this one seems to be a compilation/best-of(?) of previous books or something. felt surprised/turned off by how many poems are 'earnest'/romantic with emphasis on kissing and the moon. some of the humor feels dated, especially the section that's just image macros, but i felt like other jokes/poems held up well. most enjoyed a short poem that felt like an earnest love poem that ended with a brief advertisement for home gym equipment. feeling 65% convinced that roggenbuck has rebranded as the mysterious Dave, based on some notable similarities between their books.

Southeastern Nowhere by Bram Riddlebarger (gob pile press): i think this is a collection of (out of print?) chapbooks from 2000-2015. mix of themes/images presented in mostly very short poems, sort of haiku-like. noticed a large number of metaphors/similes describing things as being like dreams in a way that felt nonsensical, made me think about what people mean when they talk about dreams in poetry. mostly liked the poems about camping/the outdoors.

Everything Was Fine Until Whatever by Chelsea Martin (future tense): felt interested in reading this one following EE's (unused, comically unusable) blurb for my book: Reading Zac Smith’s Everything Is Totally Fine reminded me of reading “Alt Lit” books in 2009, particularly Chelsea Martin’s Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, which made me wonder if Chelsea Martin might write an essay abt Zac Smith the way Sam Pink wrote an essay abt Sean Thor Conroe, but mostly idc, because mostly idk what “Alt Lit” is, I never did, and I still don’t care. i have read and enjoyed other books by chelsea martin before, but hadn't read this one. it may be my least favorite so far. mostly short, self-deprecating vignettes about relationships, body image, pregnancy/birth, family, and food. some minor experimentation in form and includes some drawings (i like her art style a lot). sometimes felt repetitive and took me a while to finish, although i thought it had various good moments/images whenever i picked it up. i don't think our books are very similar aside from each emphasizing absurd humor within short pieces. thankful that chelsea did not write a 5k word essay talking shit about me.

Teenager by Bud Smith (Vintage): have read and enjoyed previous bud smith books/novels. felt interested in his 'major label debut' and how it would compare. enjoyed various specific scenes in this one but felt like some plot points were predictable (why they leave the ranch) or arbitrary/confusing (meeting neil at the grocery store and the subsequent events). enjoyed the theme of hapless and silly cop deaths throughout. laughed at one line (when they stole the dirt bike). felt confused at times by the narrative perspective -- mostly follows kody's internal monologue, but veers occasionally into tella's -- and seeming lack of conversation/character development between the two characters during a prolonged, intense, intimate road trip. noticed, grumpily, several copyediting/consistency issues (including the use of 'wretch' when he meant 'retch' and the continued emphasis on them only stealing shitty cars except for the one scene where the plot requires that they're driving a BMW), which only stood out to me because of the long-running publicity story that the book was rewritten and edited by several people over an ~8 year period. the long length and emphasis on plot/action/adventure often made it hard for me to want to pick it back up continue reading. felt like various minor plot/character points were needlessly inserted and repeated for dramatic, major-press-style drama. felt like the ending was good overall, cementing the book ultimately as a condemnation of America, which wasn't as in-your-face throughout. felt in the vein of earlier stories by bud, e.g. the one about eating american flags

Donald Goines by Calvin Westra (expat press): enjoyed his previous book and i enjoyed this book, but partially for different reasons. this is a quick, funny, heartfelt novel about poor teenagers getting addicted to drugs. enjoyed the emphasis here on the recurring comedic bits and several very comical scenes/dialogue. enjoyed the unique and internally-consistent effects of the drug, how people talked/felt about the effects of the high. enjoyed how the narrative slowly unveils aspects of the characters/background, revealing variously emotionally engaging layers below the at-first-absurd-seeming things, e.g. the puppets/birds motifs. thought the last third tended to drag/get repetitive, but overall i think calvin westra is a very talented writer and this is a good book, according to my personal preferences.

Guess What's Different by Susan Triemart (malarkey books): short stories with a surprisingly high number written in second person. felt like if it weren't for these it could have just been billed as a CNF collection about death in the family. felt generally uninterested in the mfa writing prompt-like nature of most of the stories -- lots of artifice in the form like lists and fragmented flashbacks, inventing/emphasizing parallelism in the events and wording, and an overall sense of self-importance/melodrama. graham described this kind of writing as 'precious'. most enjoyed a longer, early story about her grandpa running over a toddler. didn't finish.

Characters by Derek Maine (expat press): we published a ~6k word review/interview about this on the Last Estate. i liked the book more than i expected. thought it was engaging, ambitious, and clever, if at times overwrought and melodramatic -- lots of people dying and lots of people smoking cigarettes. unironically reminded my of infinite jest (it also references IJ on the last page). thought the non-postmodern parts of straightforward (auto)fiction were most engaging but respect that they were subsumed into the higher-dimensional ambition of the book. enjoyed thinking of it being structurally influenced by dubliners. enjoyed/noticed and empathized with his interest in writing fake autofiction about indie lit success stories, e.g. a scene where there's a well-attended reading at some bar in NYC that features "tyrant, house of vlad, and expat" as publishing entities. i think it's the first book afaik to mention cyberwriting (and currentivism -- i'm sure derek would appreciate me recognizing this book as 'being in conversation' with bibles' book)

The Light To Never Be Snuffed by Josh Dale (Alien Buddha): josh sent me this after i sent him a copy of my book. this is a novella about an overweight, awkward kid with a bad home life who really likes pokemon and hallucinates about ants. the underlying story seems compelling in its bleak realism re: the family life, specifically the parents' complex relationship, but i don't feel comfortable really reviewing it for style or execution because it seems very unedited, which i mostly blame on the editor/publisher of the press, who seems to just churn out books (this started out as a more inflammatory note about alien buddha press, but having done some research, and based on my experience reading alien buddha books and speaking with some of the authors who publish with them, i don't think they're necessarily a scam, but think they could make fewer, but better-looking and better-edited books).

bonus chapbook speedround

Cheat by Danielle Chelosky (self released/the waiting room): brief diary type thing about cheating on a boyfriend in high school and drinking too much/feeling rebellious and self-pitying. includes a large number of similes for feeling bad. feel like its strength is the 'honesty/intensity' and less the style/structure/voice. enjoyed feeling frustrated by the bouts of self pity during an expensive family vacation to a tropical island, as a dad.

The Leave Society Cookbook by Tao Lin (forever magazine): very little written content but looks very nice. includes some good jokes, including a recipe that he has never made, but still recommends. would have enjoyed more recipes; would enjoy a full-length hybrid cookbook/memoir that focuses just on food and family.

King Ludd's Rag #10 by Rebecca van Laer and Alan ten-Hoeve (malarkey): 2 longer stories. rebecca's is about a dysfunctional couple temporarily moving to new orleans so the painter can work on her art. alan's story is about a failed wood-worker with a mysterious penis infection trying to get answers from various anxiety-inducing doctors. enjoyed the ending of rebecca's, and the conceit of the protagonist being judgemental and dismissive of the other characters. enjoyed alan's story's conceit and laughed a few times throughout. alan reminded me that i had read a ~1k word earlier version of the story and rejected it for something, but i like the new, longer version. enjoyed the theme of the zine being that each story centers a self-centered, failing artist of some kind with a troubled marriage. seemed like a good editorial decision.

Spontaneity for its own sake by Shawn Michael Sullivan (self-released): shawn is responsible for me appearing on bookworm with tao, as i understand it. he later sent us links to/pdfs for his own books and was transparently angry with us for not promoting his writing in exchange for getting us on the show. i purchased two of his books to be nice. this one is a collection of self-referential short stories mostly about the act of writing vis a vis this and other books, although one of the pieces says it's all poetry. other themes include frustration, self-pity, and living in los angeles. many pieces feel like self-affirmations. the longest pieces read like an alt lit-style autofiction but with more affectation/drama/annoyance/frustration -- the style makes me think of someone telling a story at a fancy dinner party. enjoyed this line: "I use my imagination when I write of who I was and am, and I like thinking about the different ways I can use my imagination."

briefer book reviews

the return of my book reviews was a smash hit. this is the rushed, sophomoric slump post. we got a new producer and everything. 6.2 on pitchfork ass post.

Love by Hanne Orstavik -  when i sent christian utigard some books, he sent me some uk-published translations of norwegian books, including this one. it's a a split narrative following a single mother and 9 year old son, taking place over the course of about six hours. it's bleak - everyone has problems, it's cold and icy, etc. the split in perspective happens randomly, paragraph by paragraph, introducing some intentional ambiguity at times, i think to create additional tension. felt interested in the internal thoughts of each character, both seeming very realistic - a mix of self-doubt, intrusive thoughts, strange memories, speculations. i don't remember reading many books with a child protagonist that feels so relatable and realistic. felt like there was an artificial amount of thriller-adjacent tension which was unneeded, but i enjoyed most the daily artifacts of life in a small norwegian village, like people eating liver paste on bread and watching music videos on tv. didn't predict the ending and thought it was just good, as an ending. but overall felt like the book went slowly, in spite of its short length. curious about orstavik's first novel (this one seems more acclaimed and is probably, to me, based on this and what i know about myself, the worse of the two).

Zero by Gine Cornelia Pederson (Nordisk books) - bought this without knowing anything about it because i liked a different book in translation from nordisk. published originally in 2013, translated in 2018. this is a book-lengthed poem, split into chapters, about a teenager/young woman slowly getting into drugs and going clinically insane. started out slow and melodramatic but then quickly pivoted to ridiculous, slapstick/comedic, and very dark in a fun way that made me laugh out loud and share passages with others. reminds me of alt lit in a good way, but cranks up the action and is less self-referential, or something - leans into being fiction and not autofiction. i enjoyed the consistent emphasis on her being selfish, misanthropic, and uninterested in others in spite of much of the plot revolving around intense feelings of love and desire, often to great comedic effect. the poem form allows/encourages some moments of obscuring what's happening with more impressionistic/staccato lines especially toward the end, which i wasn't as interested in, but i 'got' it as an effect. thought i wouldn't like the end as it was happening, but then i did. would recommend; keep thinking of it as a 'romp.'

Modern Massacres by Timothy Willis Sanders (Publishing Genius) - i liked TWS's novel Matt Meets Vik and random stuff i've read online. this is a very short collection of mostly very short stories. most seem/appear autofictional and mostly focus on social anxiety; there's a big theme of overthinking and being distracted during interesting social situations. similar to Matt Meets Vik, I really like his tendency to emphasize the disconnect between what people think vs. what people say; several of these scenes made me laugh throughout the book. some of the stories do that fragmented/shuffled up cnf thing that doesn't appeal to me much, and it felt like the sequencing and content was imbalanced; i think most of the stories follow tws-like protagonists except one toward the end. felt like, because of its length, it could have fully committed to either just autofiction or a wider mix of perspectives. would have also enjoyed more/longer stories - i found all the stories compelling and enjoyed reading them. would vote for an elected official whose platform includes the publication of modern massacres 2.

I'm Not Hungry but I Could Eat by Christopher Gonzalez (sante fe writer's project): vaguely knew about this from online, bought it at a local shop. liked it a lot more than i expected to; i had assumed it would be mostly melodramatic 'normie' litfic kind of stuff, but i found it overall engaging and unpretentious. all the stories focus on being insecure and bisexual - some trauma-from-being-closeted/coming-out stories, some cynical 'love is hard to find' stories, some more 'plays-with-form' stories. i liked the emphasis on food and the straightforward narrative structure of most of the stories, but felt like some of the endings were 'mfa-style' with shoehorned in setups and at times relied on 'lazy' caricatures as an attempt at humor/levity. repeatedly thought that i would have enjoyed more long stories - i enjoyed 'inhabiting his world' and felt like he doesn't need the 'punchiness' of flash-lengthed stories to keep you interested. unrelated to the stories, i felt that the cover is terrible and looks like a bad cook book/chef memoir. also noticed all the blurbs try to make metaphors/similes comparing the stories to eating food, which feels embarrassing for chris.

Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass by Harold Gatty - a nonfiction book from the 50s, i think, about 'pathfinding'. mix of practical navigation tips (of varying levels of stupidity, such as 'follow your nose: cities smell like factories, and farms smell like cow shit'), belligerently confident speculation (author is convinced that people naturally walk in wide circles because of having differently lengthed legs; no idea what is true explanation but i assume this isn't the reason), complex math problems (calculating the day of the month based on some tables you're supposed to memorize), and legitimately interesting history, anthropology, biology (specifically the chapters about bird migration patterns and how some pacific island nations navigated by stars, thinking of the sky in terms of a dome with bands of stars). skipped some of the dumber-seeming passages. enjoyed various scientific fun facts i've since forgotten. unsure i learned anything practical. biggest takeaway was thinking of moon phases as they relate to the moon's spatial opposition to the sun in the sky - a full moon rises as the sun sets, for example.

 

briefer book reviews

after experiencing minor petty twitter bullshit over a middling review on my blog, i stopped publishing book reviews. i felt like the petty twitter bullshit stirrer made me reassess the purpose of me writing book reviews, what role they could serve anybody, and whether my criticisms of any given book weren't just rooted in various biases. i spent some time learning, in a shallow way, ideas related to art and taste, quality, etc. i also talked with some people about the role of negative reviews in small press publishing, how there's little value in it in contrast to the millions of dollars invested in keeping small press books out of serious press to begin with -- someone puts out a book on a no-name press because they care about their art more, i believe, than someone who views publishing as a job, and their books as marketable products. i have nothing new to say about literary criticism or critique. i like reviewing and talking about books. i had mostly positive, personal feedback from people who read my more honest and open reviews of indie books. i have seen a fun trend in people i like writing single-paragraph reviews of books online (eg nathan, crow, and sebastian), on their blogs. i feel inspired by this and want to participate again. and, finally, if you don't like my review of your book, fuck you. just kidding.

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist: this is from 1808 and apparently was a favorite of franz kafka, which is why i assume people know about it today and revere it, and why it was recommended to me. it's about a horse trader who suffers a petty slight from some baron or something, and his quest for justice escalates in exceedingly rambunctious and bizarre ways. wikipedia describes it as eerily modern for its time, which i agree with. it made me laugh in several places, although i felt like the ending dragged on a little bit. i liked the emphasis on absurdism by way of pettiness and honor. the writing is at times hard to follow, with lots of long, complex sentence structures and confusing references to people, eg lots of referring to someone as 'the latter' or 'the former' in a 200-word sentence, and using various titles like 'the elector' that had to be understood in context (as there are many electors). i celebrated kohlhaas's various victories and cursed his enemies. fun book.

The Mold Farmer by Rick Claypool (six gallery press): a purely sci-fi book that i felt was compelling for its severe bleakness and provocative imagery. i haven't read much sci-fi as an adult, but i enjoyed this, its emphasis on family obligation and futility, the conceit of the world post-alien invasion, and the non-contrived-seeming ways some people act, the ambiguity of their choices/actions. i felt the dream sequences and some aspects of the prose were distracting, but overall the book made me feel frustrated and depressed in a fun way.

What Are You? by Lindsay Lerman (clash): written to a sort of aggregation of men in the narrator's life as a condemnation of patriarchal values, sex, and relationships. a unique means, i felt, of communicating personal trauma and connecting it to broader patterns. i felt frustrated by what felt like a lack of direction/plot and a little confused on whether it should be understood as a novel or a collection of essays. i noticed a large number of cliched expressions, which surprised me, as there is otherwise an emphasis on style and philosophical expression. i think its strength is in its anger/indignation and how it collectively functions as a subjecting you, by the narrator's experience, to a sort of 'onslaught of bullshit' that is ruinous to life and depressingly common for all women. glad i read it.

Small Moods by Shane Kowalski (future tense): fun collection of mostly very short things. mostly reminded me of lydia davis in terms of style, but with some more 'fun' and absurdism. someone in an interview asked about the ellipses, and i think they contribute well to the tone, conveying 'madness' or being 'unhinged', which was effective when it happened and elevated the stories by emphasizing the speaker in a unique way. reminded me of the joy williamsian exclamation point and the bernhardian parentheses. i liked the stories most that didn't try to end on a clever pun or poetic turn, but i think for a different audience those are probably the best part of the stories. a few made me laugh out loud.

You can't betray your best friend and learn to sing at the same time by Kim Hiorthøy (nordisk books): something like 40 short stories/scenes and a few bleak drawings presented as a novel. emphasis on comical, farcical relationship things with an antagonistic/misanthropic/stupid narrator. made me excited and giddy at times and i sent pictures of the chapters to people. many of the 'chapter's made me laugh and feel validated about my own writing. felt impressed/interested that it's originally from like 2001 or 2003.

 

Yes by Thomas Bernhard: ok by bernhard standards. made me laugh in a couple very specific scenes, but mostly felt like the repetition wasn't as effective as in other books by him. the last fourth was the most exciting part, i felt, and included the best jokes. for example, the (unhinged) narrator randomly describes his library as 'the spider room' without any reason/context, and repeats it a few times - both effective and comical. i also liked the 'reveal'/explanation of the swiss couple at the end and the last few scenes in particular. it has an effective title for the book, which also made me laugh, learning its context. interested in reading more 'middle period' bernhard books.

The Lake by Yasunari Kawabata: recommended to me by troy. enjoyed it a lot and i think of the imagery/characters often. oddly split something like 30-70 between two protagonists who briefly overlap. great book about fucked up freaks doing weird, vaguely threatening shit and feeling sexually repressed. fits in the canon of books about a little creep acting weird and then revealing that they suffered some kind of trauma in their youth in the last quarter of the book. i liked the ending a lot and a lot of the dialogue, and the way that scenes and transitions are allowed to slowly develop - felt like it's presented with confidence, which appeals to me. never really knew what was going to happen next throughout the whole book, in spite of it not being a 'thriller.'

Woodcraft and Camping by 'Nessmuk': mostly a travelogue/collection of 'yarns' about bushcraft and camping from the late 1800s, written by a conservationist. includes a lot of practical (but in modernity impractical) advice/tips on camping, like how to make your own bugspray, cook certain kinds of bread, fishing, building a fire, and prepare shelter. mostly enjoyed the shittalky parts about lumberjacks (wasteful and dumb) and soft tourist-type campers. includes a very dated/racist but interesting discussion of getting into coffee on a trip to brazil. includes a good day-by-day travelogue of a trip through michigan in the deep woods. i think this author was a big influence on hemingway's outlook on the natural world and sport. made me excited about camping.

La Serenissima by Wallace Barker (gob pile): travel writing poems, mostly about continental europe. lots of repeated imagery of drinking aperol spritzes and seeing famous places i've never heard of. enjoyed the icelandic section and the montana camping sections most i think in spite of how short they are comparatively. some good humor and observations throughout. i think these are mostly technically sonnets and qualify as poems with line breaking that i don't understand. made me want to travel places again.

Easy Rider II: Sleezy Drivers by KKUURRTT and Tex (and Cavin and Brian Alan Ellis): split-perspective road novel with some cameos by cavin and brian. i liked the humor and emphasis on the physical experience of being on a long road trip with someone. enjoyed the sillier parts and the sort of meta-writing-world commentary (shout out colin winnette, who i think anyone read because of his soft skull book) and the comedic scenes at tourist traps. felt rushed toward the end - would have enjoyed it going on longer, maybe with a stronger character arc for the tex character, combating his insecurities. ends in a puff.

 

shithead laureate by homeless (clash):  this is a book of his usual type of poem - the same recurring themes and images, such as self-hatred/depression, fast food, homeless people (which he refers to as 'housing-impaired', which i think is supposed to be a joke, but feels weird in the context of his penname (and that he's not, you know, homeless)) and stuff on the street, nostalgia for childhood, and being judgemental about people who use social media. compared to his earlier poems, there's less emphasis on hope/beauty in the mundane/broken and more bitterness about things.  noticed here a reliance on convoluted, sometimes recursive metaphors/similes. usually i found myself sort of skimming them for the imagery, which i feel is the intended way to read them, but sometimes i'd actually trace one out/pay attention and feel like the metaphor doesn't make any sense. one that i remember is describing the sky as the color of a dead vacuum cleaner - what color is your vacuum cleaner? does a vacuum change color when it dies? there's also an inexplicable poem about being on a boat made out of scabs, or something, and jerking off onto a woman's feet, which made me laugh in its nonsequiturness. i also want to say here, and this has nothing to do with homeless as an author, that this is possibly the worst typeset book i've seen. i'd be really mad if this were how my book ended up looking.

 

telapaphone by adam soldofsky (maudlin house): bought based on randomly reading what felt like a compelling excerpt online which turns out to be the first few pages. it's novella-length and goes by quick. starts out with what felt most interesting, to me, as a herman hesse-style portrait of a man's friendship with another man at art school, a compelling scene of them presumably going to a baseball game together, but it quickly moves into a sort of light sci-fi thriller where the characters freaky friday into each other's bodies and the (depressed, alcoholic) protagonist, pretending to be the more successful friend (by occupying his body) comes to learn the guy's mixed up in shady bullshit. there's a russian mobster and goons, there's some quickly-resolved mystery stuff about figuring out what the mobster wants, then everything is all fixed and smoothly cleaned up and everyone's happy.  my main complaint is how underdeveloped it all felt -  felt like a 1st draft to get general plot points down and was left at that. most characters stand around or seemingly disappear when it doesn't serve the action, especially at the end.

islands in the stream by ernest hemingway: didn't finish, but enjoyed reading ~1/3 of it and would probably enjoy the rest but didn't feel compelled to keep going. i liked the protracted scenes about fishing the most especially in context of fatherhood, plus various scenes of dark comedy after his sons die. felt like some of the style was overly affectational and would have benefited from him writing more freely like in other parts of the book. thought the mysterious romance of the past angle was uninteresting and artificial. laughing at considering the ideal hemingway book one in which some dudes go camping or fishing and don't talk about women ever, which i think is what critics say is why he's bad.

the first collection of criticism by a living female rock critic by jessica hopper: didn't finish, but enjoyed various parts. main disappointment is how little criticism there is - it's mostly just a collection of published stuff about music from various sites and magazines, including short interviews, some personal essay stuff, and an interesting article about indie bands getting commercial sync deals. there are a few pieces specifically engaging with rock criticism, such as misogyny in emo music, but mostly the interviews and reviews don't seem particularly cohesive or engaging in terms of criticism. like, there seemed to be very little of herself in the writing, mostly read like stuff she wrote for a paycheck. not as in-your-face pot-stirring as i'd expect based on the title and description. favorite part was the profile of pedro the lion from 2009 with emphasis on his relationship with religion.

the vacation by garth miró (expat): didn't finish. kind of wacky. lots of exclamation points. has an emphasis on generically shittalking rich fat people; the hero is an antihero drug addict who thinks he's better and cooler than everyone. it feels weirdly inauthentic to me, kind of contrived and repetitive with a frustrating back-and-forth pacing., some vague sci-fi thrill element in it. noticed a lot of noun compounding as a stylistic effect, like 'mind-fat.' when trying to think of an example of this i thought up 'poopstink', which i don't think is in the book but made me laugh. people (for various reasons) either publicly or in private compare it to body high, which i didn't like.

the morning star by karl ove knausgaard (penguin): overall i liked it, and felt like it lets his many strengths shine, but in a lot of ways it felt like he was trying to write it to be more of a polished, engaging standard litfic best seller type novel. he's an excellent nature writer and emphasizes writing about daily minutiae, specifically food, still, in the book, which is a highlight for me. i felt kind of disappointed in what felt like a cynically transparent attempt to shake off his autofictional baggage, like it could have been better if focused on just a few narrators, like the book would be better as either closer to 300 pages or 1200 pages. i felt like the characters were more caricatures than real in a lot of ways, although sometimes this leads to funny scenes/images, like jostein cutting the line in the bathroom because he has to pee so bad and him describing ejaculating as something like 'squirting out hot juice'. i also felt like the attempts at creepy horror-y images and twists at the end of chapters were kind of lame, and felt mostly at odds with the larger theme of, i think, theological horror (i'm sure there's a real/better term for this), which is the best part of the book (and why i liked a time for everything so much, in part - making angels terrifying in a sense, undermining the omnipotence of god with emphasis on ritual and other autonomous, mystical beings). i felt like the second half, which actually started to explore this theme instead of allude to it, was more compelling. the last chapter (not the in-fiction essay, but the last jostein chapter) reminded me of the haruki murakami trick of characters entering mysterious worlds, although knowing how much of a biblical scholar knausgaard is (and my lack of biblical knowledge) i assume a lot of the mysteriousness is explained by the external lore it builds on. i enjoyed the essay at the end and the ruminations on life and death, in particular a quote from a philosopher that says something to the effect of "for early humans, everything was living - trees, rocks, water, houses, the air - but for modern humans almost nothing is living - including our own bodies, the idea of matter and space, etc."

 

the ax book by D. Cook: got as a present, along with an ax. didn't finish, but plan on going back to it sometime. some interesting history of the ax in america. diagrams and tips on cutting trees/logs/etc. interesting anecdotes about penknives. used it as a guide for cutting down a small tree. it was harder than i anticipated, but enjoyable. 

the weather book by eric sloane: felt interesting in learning about understanding the weather in a way that doesn't rely on reading accuweather maps, which this book is billed as. i liked the introduction, which emphasized connecting more with nature and the outdoors and a brief overview of the science behind various folk wisdom about the weather. ironically, the intro is dismissive of how boring meteorology has become in terms of memorizing maps and equations, but then i found most of the book just attempting to give the same kind of overview, but the maps and diagrams are hand drawn and interesting. learned a lot about identifying warm and cold fronts, how they work, the different kinds of clouds and rain associated with them. enjoyed the outdated emphasis on sailing and lightning rods being new. feel like i need to reread it to better understand high and low pressure zones vs warm and cold air zones. would enjoy reading more about understanding the sky through direct observation, realized while reading i don't confidently understand what a 'northerly' wind means, eg is it blowing south to north or north to south. but overall enjoyed being able to predict rain 12+ hours out based on observing the sky a few times.

Third World Magicks by Mike Kleine (inside the castle): i enjoyed this book, comprising two very short stories/novellas (maybe like 4k words total in the book?) connected by a couple-page fancy-word soup. i felt like each story was interesting and engaging on its own - one about music critics, one a sort of sci-fi farce on a mysterious island.  i liked the latter the most, though, and it made me laugh several times. the emphasis on 'jobs' and, as i read it, arbitrariness in seeking purpose, was interesting and clever. i also liked the visual elements throughout the book.

The Novelist by Jordan Castro (soft skull): fun, inventive, bernhardian, shittalky, cathartic. i liked a lot of the imagery and the meta aspects of it, and felt compelled by the seemless way he embedded the 'novel' into this novel, showcasing his talent as a novelist in a sort of dual way. i enjoyed the philosophical discussions, the humor, the daily life minutiae, the use of semi-colons, and the descriptions of social media. feels like a fun book to have written. made me laugh a lot. have enjoyed thinking of comparing the sound of making coffee in my chemex to the sound of a woman peeing, after reading.