Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (12/11)

Sitting in Alison's mother's Harlem apartment while Alison and friends traipse around the city. Finally finished this monstrosity in the late afternoon, at the kitchen table and three coffees into a day that feels over before it began.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño (10/11)

Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (09/11)

Edit from 2018 aka The Future: I forgot just about everything about this book! Maybe always jot some notes, Ben!

Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow (08/11)

The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow (07/11)

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Stitches by David Small (06/11)

I think my friend Will and I have inverse relationships to comics and alcohol.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (05/11)

Schlubby, techie men of the world, rejoice! Here is your Homer.

No quantity of hack novels will ever heighten your sensitivity to the world around you. That, if it exists, would be the province of literature. This does not have to, but often does, coincide with a general lack of titillation and thrill. Something about the stirring of synapses by plot-driven drama seems to inure them to nuance. 100 pages into Cryptonomicon, and it remains to be seen what this will be 1000 pages later.

For all its detailed invention, reaches for stereotypes too often with its characters.

In the end, more like Battlefield Earth than Gravity's Rainbow.

The Sound and the Fury (05/11)

Look at the rate of book consumption for 2009-10. Compare it to 2011. What does this say about the working life? Something execrably boring for whoever is not living it.