++ This fall will bring the return of some of my favorites. James Ellroy has a new huge novel. William Gibson brings forth another cyberfi tome. Mary Oliver adds another volume of poetry. A new and advance word is, a definitive biography of Tennessee Williams.
++I received today my advance copy--for some reason--advance copies of David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks hyped as the most ambitious novel of ALL TIME. It weighs in at 642 pages. I'll let you know how it turns out.
++The book of this month for me has been David Shafer's Whiskey,Tango, Foxtrot. I wish publicists won't do this. They say "It is the spirit of William Gibson and Chuck Palahniuk." As Bill Burroughs said, "Paranoia is having all the Facts." We now accept the NRA siphons off all on-line data. And we know that this data is used by corporate interests. What happens when The Committee, a global corporate cabal seeks total dominance over information,and is challenged by a resistance called Dear Diary. Shafer actually pulls this novel off as both a thriller and a thirty-something meditation on contemporary life. Given it's August, I found it less funny than depressing since I know character types that work for The Committee-like structures. For the thirty-somethings, it would be funny and encouraging to those more independent-minded. I hope Shafer pulls off a sequel.
++The most depressing book I've read this month is Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge:The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Ronald Reagan. A masterful history of the time with ample use of local papers to give the flavor of events that I have even forgotten. Perlstein has been criticized as some contemporary historians for posting their footnotes and research on line to save paper. The book weighs in at 804 pages.
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