There ain’t much going on in blogland. Jim Walsh wrote about Chris Mar’s Tolerance for the MinnPost and Aquarium Drunkard has a phenomenal write up of the Sire-years reissues. And about 1000 vacuous bloggers put their iPods on shuffle and randomly listed 10 songs without any context whatsoever.
Go read a book. I’ve just started Juliana Hatfield’s memoir When I Grow Up (thanks to her publisher for sending it to me). It will probably make it into the Westerberg Bookclub. I’m only 15 pages in and she’s already mentioned the ‘Mats.
What are you reading?
I’m bouncing between Walker Percy’s, “Love In Ruins”; Philip Roth’s, “Zuckerman Unbound”; and the new David Sedaris.
The new Sedaris is a big, dull dud. You should skip it. However, the new Roth Indignation is all kinds of good.
Just finished “Rabbit at Rest” (1990) – the fourth and final in Updike’s Rabbit series (Not PW’s “Mr. Rabbit” – this one’s much more depressing!)
As Jon Stewart would say, “fascinating!” Really. The way Updike freezes details of the U.S. period he’s writing about (in this case, the tired end of the Reagan era) while making me feel empathy for the not-very-likable Rabbit and his journey downward, it’s a great book in a great series.
“Love in the Ruins” is excellent, but for prime Percy try “The Last Gentleman” followed by “The Second Coming”.
And then try “Son of Sniglet” by Rich Hall followed by Catherine Hepburn’s “Me”.