Books Ben Read

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

I just finished reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover last week, so I could easily write one of my old-timey blog posts about whatever I used to write about.  But I won’t.  I’m not busy.  I just won’t.  Just go read it and form your own opinion, okay?  Do you really need me to hold your hand through this process?  Jesus, grow up.  #Book dump over.

The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley

Batman is old… with a vengeance.

The Female Man by Joanna Russ

I bought The Female Man at a nice little bookshop in Philadelphia where, if I’m not careful, I may spend all of my money in the future.

Epileptic by David B.

I wrote all this last month.  Thanks for doing all the work, past me!  Sucker.

You may recall that among the first books I read while keeping this blog was David B.’s Epileptic 1. Epileptic 1 was the first half of a run of six autobiographical comics about the author coping with his brother’s severe epilepsy.  I vowed to read Epileptic 2 one day, but there is noEpileptic 2.  Instead there isEpileptic, a complete collection of the run which I was lucky enough to pick up for two dollars at a stoop sale near my bank.

While the first half focuses almost exclusively on his brother’s illness (and is replete with doom), the parts of the tale I hadn’t read are refreshingly abstract, with long passages detailing the histories of certain hermetic orders, Swedenborgian theology, etc., as well as an assurance that the author’s life isn’t as ruined as you think by new age thinking.

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

This book is sick.  I’m tired of this.  Have you been reading my parenting blog on VICE.com?  Happy birthday, Lina & Mac.

Coming Into The Country by John McPhee

Does anyone want to move to Alaska with me?  Message me for “deets.”

A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union by Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

I recall nothing of this book.  Apparently I was feeling particularly verbose when I was done, though, because this was saved in the dregs of this post:

The novel is thoroughly European in its length and in its didacticism.  It has a similar feel to Nausea or Death in Venice.  I’ve never seen the world in terms of continents and I’m pretty sure the world ends about two or three miles out from the Atlantic shore, but this is a European book.

I’m not even sure what that means.  Forgive me, dark lord!

Divorcer by Gary Lutz

I spent four years in a college fiction program being told that Gary Lutz is a “writer’s writer.”  At least four of my teachers had me read from his Stories in the Worst Way. I don’t disagree.  I bought this at a reading of his in Crown Heights.  But it wasn’t fabulous.  It sounds better coming out of his mouth then it does on the page (pages don’t makes sounds.  Whatevs!)

Andy Warhol by Wayne Koestenbaum

The memory I connect most centrally with reading this pseudo-bio of Warhol is visiting the contemporary art wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and watching a few minutes of his Empire State Building film.  Koestenbaum implied that it is necessary to view the majesty of the film to understand its power.  I disagree.  Unless its power is being boring.

This next sentence was saved in the draft of this blog, so I must have written it right when I finished the book (early March? Late February?):

It’s less an out-and-out biography of Warhol than it is a rough outline of events which Koestenbaum placed in inexact order, with long passages of art criticism interceding throughout.