Pete Lit: Auctorial Doppelgängers

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Auctorial Doppelgängers

PICTURED LEFT: Ian McEwan, Standup Guy
PICTURED RIGHT: Richard Belzer, Standup Guy

Late to the party, but now that I see the cool kids doing it...

October 6, 2005 in Books | Permalink

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Recent Reads

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Good but less than essential novel of African tribal life, tradition versus modernity.

Alan Sillitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Entertaining comic novel of youthful irresponsibility.

Patrick Hamilton: Hangover Square
Disturbing portrait of alienation, obsession and mental illness.

Ian McEwan: Amsterdam
Two men strive to make their mark and when thwarted then seek revenge, but a third gets the biggest revenge of all.

Tarjei Vesaas: The Birds
Relentlessly sad novel of helplessness and not belonging.

Pär Lagerkvist: Barabbas
Beautiful and quietly powerful story of an unrequited longing for faith.

Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Brilliant, angry, timeless satire of the entire human race.

John McGahern: Amongst Women
Strong novel about what happens to revolutionists after the revolution is won.

William Trevor: Fools of Fortune
Lovely novel of revolution, revenge and self-imposed exile.

Gabe Durham: The Complete Genealogy of Everyone, Ever
Whimsical and very funny collection of stories about well-meaning losers.

Eric Bogosian: Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead
Outrageous, obscene, bitter, provocative - and laugh-out-loud funny.

Arthur Koestler: Darkness At Noon
A powerful, thoughtful and ultimately tragic discourse on revolutionary politics.

Kent Haruf: Eventide
Another lovely novel of the fictional small town of Holt, Colorado.

Matt Bell: The Collectors
Inventive and sadly beautiful fictionalization of the tragic Collyer brothers.

Tim Hall: Full Of It: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper
Lively and funny novel of a New York rag sheet and the misfits who created it.

Nelson Algren: Chicago: City on the Make
Algren's classic, bitter love song to his city.

Nelson Algren: The Last Carousel
Fine collection of memoirs and stories from late in Algren's career.

Michael T. Fournier: The Minutemen: Double Nickels On the Dime
Thoughtful and passionate discussion of the Minutemen's great album.

Flannery O'Connor: A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Powerful but bitter and bleak story collection that I will not be reading again.

Aleksandar Hemon: Love and Obstacles
Strong story collection from one of my favorite writers.

Jack Conroy: The Disinherited
Fine account of working-class Midwest life in the treacherous 1920s and 30s - but more of a documentary than a novel.

William E. Leuchtenburg: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940
Very fine and highly informative study of FDR, the New Deal and the Great Depression.

Edmund Wilson: The American Jitters: A Year of the Slump
Very fine collection of essays from 1930-31 on the early days of the Great Depression.

Mark Costello: The Murphy Stories
Devastating portrait of a man and his family, marriage and unfaithfulness.

John Cook: Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records
Excellent history of the indie rock label.

Matthew Sharpe: The Sleeping Father
Well-intentioned but less than successful novel of family dysfunction.

William Walsh: Questionstruck
Unique compilation - just the questions from Calvin Trillin's books. Oddly compelling.

Eric Schlosser: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
Interesting studies of three underground economies, albeit more of a compilation than a unified book.

Greg Kot: Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
Brisk, informative and entertaining account of how musicians and fans are taking back control of music.

Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Overlong and unsympathetic portrait of an unhappy woman and those around her.

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The great American tale of epic quest. Funny and still relevant.

Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Comic but ultimately sad tale of a controlling, conforming society.

George Orwell: 1984
Brilliant, compelling, sobering. Orwell’s masterpiece is every bit as relevant today as the day it was written.

Henry David Thoreau: Walden, or Life in the Woods
Truly great narrative on simplicity, self-sufficiency and communing with nature.

Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Wonderful narrative of a year spent farming one's own food, eating locally and saving the planet.

Muriel Miller Branch: The Water Brought Us: The Story of the Gullah-Speaking People
Informative account of the Gullah culture of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia.

Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own
Compelling discourse on the critical need for freedom and privacy for women fiction writers.

Ander Monson: Neck Deep and Other Predicaments
Inventive essays on the writer's intriguing past and mundane commonalities of his everyday life.

C.S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Lewis recounts his battle with grief and loss, somehow emerging with hope.

Michael Harrington: The Other America: Poverty in the Untied States
Passionate 1962 study on the state of poverty in the richest country in the world.

Richard Matheson: I Am Legend
Purported classic with a fascinating premise which doesn't quite deliver.

Patrick McCabe: Winterwood
Promising but ultimately disjointed and disappointing story of love, kin, home and myth.

William Trevor: Death in Summer
Lovely, understated novel of loneliness and a quest for belonging.

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories
Charming collection of Old World tales, of life and piety and death.

Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run?
Devastating portrait of ambition and success in 1930s Hollywood.

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House on the Prairie
Classic account of 19th Century pioneer life.

Charles Simmons: Wrinkles
Innovative and fascinating telling of an otherwise ordinary story.

Pär Lagerkvist: The Dwarf
Powerful and furious novel of war, religion and humanity.

Nathanael West: Miss Lonelyhearts
Odd, bitter, angry - might be a classic, but I'm not quite sure.

Stona Fitch: Give + Take
Offbeat caper novel of crime and philanthropy.

Erich Origen and Gan Golan: Goodnight Bush
Quietly brutal satirical sendoff to the worst President in U.S. history.

Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Four strangers consider suicide but together somehow find reason to go on.

READINGS 2001-10

Pete Lit

Literary pretendings, off-the-cuff insights and the occasional rant.

Auctorial Doppelgängers

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