Howevermany Books Challenge Round-up #1

Last year I did the 50 Book Challenge, and hit like 60 or something. This year I guess I theoretically sort of nominally signed up for the 75 Book Challenge. But now I'm sort of like, whatever. I'll read a lot of books and learn as much as I can from what I read and learn to enjoy literature in new ways and blah blah blah. There's only so many
hours in the day, see, and I have things I'd like to do with my life other than read, like become a rock star and walk on the moon and drink PBR on David Foster Wallace's yacht, and of course string together the occasional hopefully entertaining post about my adventures as a nerd, and plus when I do read, I'm honestly a real slow reader--if I get through as many books as I do it's because I have no life and I spend all my time reading--and as well there's a lot of big books I'd like to tackle this year--I think it's time to re-read The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, since it's been ten years now, and I think it's also time to finally get through The Lord of the Rings maybe, since it's been a while since the movies stopped coming out, and there's You Bright and Risen Angels over there which I want to wade my way through now for real, since I've read the (even longer) Europe Central. And I'm disturbingly serious about wanting to do Bleak House, too, actually. There's any number of other books in the piles right now that are over 500 pages long. Like The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I've bitched about previously; I really want to give that another shot. And...okay, the list goes on.

The list goes on, and it's just damned depressing to think of how it's going to just keep going on, long after I die; and how I won't even have the beginnings of a handle on the list as it stands even right now before I head off to the big library in the sky. So, you know: fuck it. I'll read what I read. I could pad the list with quick reads just to boost the numbers for the sake of the boosting and the padding, but, we're talking about books here, not boobs. Not, uh, that this should stop you from talking about boobs in the comments, mind you. See. And...

And okay! Right. It's agreed: if I want to worry about the numbers, I'll go read some math books, but I'd like to focus on the words, and I find the target thing sort of distracting from the main mission, and, right. I'm still going to count, of course, because when I was in college I picked up a Math minor and some habits are just hard to shake. So.

Boobs.

Anyway, here's what I've read so far this year.

1. Ch'Ae Man-Sik, Peace Under Heaven


2. Douglas Coupland, Miss Wyoming
   
   I posted some thoughts on the above two books here.



3. David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster


4. David Foster Wallace, Oblivion
   
   I kind of just kept mentioning DFW a lot in January. I don't know if I ever actually came out and said, like, that the books were really good, duh. I might not have mentioned that Consider the Lobster felt a little dated. Just a little. In a, yes, pre-9/11 sort of way. But that didn't stop me from enjoying the book, nor do I think it's necessarily a flaw.
   
   What is a flaw is that it's been ten years (!) since Infinite Jest was published, and we don't have a new DFW novel yet. That's sad.



5. Kristin Allio, Garner
   
   I never actually said on the blog that I read this, I think. It was the most recent Litblog Co-op Read This! book. It was fine. Fine book. For me, though, it kind of fell into the shadow of what I read next.
   
   Do check out the LBC blog though, it was Garner week this week, and I still need to read through the postings myself, actually. Man, I suck at the Internet.



6. Elizabeth Crane, All This Heavenly Glory
   
   Fantastic opening sentence. Also, is not "chick-lit".



7. Ander Monson, Other Electricities
   
   The upper-cut to Elizabeth Crane's jab. (Or, uh, insert appropriate punching metaphor here.)



8. William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
   
   Refer to this blog's sidebar. Click on the link to the February 2006 archives. Scroll at random. Read.
   
   Or, just make yourself sad, very sad, and you'll kind of be in the same boat as me.



9. Thomas Beller, How To Be a Man
   
   My girlfriend picked this out for me because I could use some instructin'. (Ha ha!) Turned out what she really gave me was the best possible way to follow up Europe Central. Personal essays, nothing overly complex, good humor value. I just liked it. Like a long-held-off-on inhalation.



10. David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
    
    Actually I'm not done yet but I will be soon. Beller put me in the mood for the humorous personal essay sort of thing, and this book's been on the coffee table since Sedaris came to town, sometime in 2005. Sedaris is as funny as ever (I loved Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, of course) but I'm wondering if maybe I'm seeing a little more of a dark edge to these stories? That's not saying much though; February and all, I could find the dark edge at the heart of a candle's flame, so.