Comments on I Am Excited About: 10-September-08

Hey Lou, Yeah, that book - and the Booker list in ...

2008-10-01T09:34:00.000+10:00

Hey Lou, Yeah, that book - and the Booker list in general, an easy target - continues to divide people. I reviewed it for ABR and thought it was terrific. What books does your friend like? Get them to do a top ten novels list for me! I'm asking everyone at the moment... What's yours? Okay, I'll start with mine:)
Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
JD Salinger’s Glass family stories
Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, Generation X and Life After God
Michael Chabon’s The Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn
Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim
Susan Fromberg Schaffer’s The Madness of a Seduced Woman
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys
Frank Moorhouse’s Grand Days and Dark Palace
Martin Amis’s The Information
Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Adam Thirlwell’s Politics
... oop that's more than ten (I see I tend to like long books) but that's just today's list...

I just got the following email from a friend of mi...

2008-10-01T09:13:00.000+10:00

I just got the following email from a friend of mine, thought it might tickle your fancy:

"Cease and desist whatever it is you're doing right now, and start actively NOT GOING OUT TO BUY A FRACTION OF THE WHOLE.

Oh my GOD, people, that's hours of my life I'm never getting back. In the last section he started cutting and pasting whole paragraphs from the start of the book! He could not have been more pretentious if he came over to my house and read the book aloud to me while smoking a pipe, drinking brandy, and wearing a red velvet smoking jacket! Which is what he's probably doing to some poor girl right now!

Do the Booker People even read these things? Or do they go, "oohhhh, that's long, and it came late, and I have to have my list in by tomorrow... I'll just read a couple pages here and there..."

Just so you are totally clear, here: A Fraction Of The Whole, by Steve Toltz. May be on the Booker Shortlist, but is good for only two things: lighting the bbq (that's a loooot of paper) and giving a shout-out to Arrested Development.

What? Every time I look at the front cover I throw my arms into the air and shout "Steve Toltz!" Maybe that's why the critics loved it? It reminded them of Steve Holt??"

Ooh. When I saw the link I hoped it would be that ...

2008-09-10T20:36:00.000+10:00

Ooh. When I saw the link I hoped it would be that one. It is good.

I'm sure I'm not alone in my distrust of advertise...

2008-09-10T13:22:00.000+10:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in my distrust of advertisers. But sometimes their moments of insight and instinct are sublime. (Particularly for the thirty-somethings who grew up with that Phil Collins song.)

And full marks to Youtube users, also. Instead of simply commenting appreciatively (or critically), they do their usual thing: bikerng in non-standad englich lol omg.