Right, in the last 2 weeks, I finished Watchmen which I felt was underwhelming; Lee Child's Jack Reacher novel, Persuader; Lucky at Cards a Hard Case Crime novel by Lawrence Block; and on the tube this morning, Double Deuce one of Robert B. Parker's Spencer books.

I've got the Complete Maus to finish, and I'll probably start one of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, another Reacher book, or another Spencer book.

I haven't read his prose, but The Golden Gate is, so far, a fantastically witty and funny verse novel.

I finished the Barthes, which was excellent, and am now reading Freud's writings on sexuality.

In Italy I read the first volume of George RR Martin's short stories, which are mostly aces, and also began The Charterhouse of Parma, which is lots of fun so far. And then I chanced upon a French copy in France (who would have thought it) so I took it as a *sign* and I am going to read it in French at the same time. Being as how I need to improve my French sharpish.

Well, The New York Trilogy is bloody brilliant, but I shall have to read it about five times more before I can even hope to understand it all. It's not what I expected and it's not always easy, but it's very noir and very good, the final story in particular.

I'm now onto giving Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) my full attention.

I used to eat in the Moon Palace and still don't feel I've got all of the New York Trilogy.

The Freud was a bit disappointing - it's all so widely accepted (or at least known) now as to feel lacking in any really new insight.

I'm following it with Susan Sontag's On Photography.

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Elmore Leonard's Out of Sight. I've seen the film (very good - with George Clooney and J Lo) and was a bit wary of reading the book because I'd seen somewhere that the film was very faithful to it, and therefore I'd already know the story). But it's brilliant - humour and style and sassiness absolutely drip from the dialogues and descriptions:

(Foley learns that his friend Buddy is going to use a guy called Glen - who likes to wear sunglasses everywhere, even when it's pitch black - to help him break out of prison. Foley phones his ex on the day of the breakout. "Tell Buddy I see this guy wearing sunglasses. I'll step on 'em. I might not even take 'em off him first.")

I love that kind of stuff.


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Elmore Leonard is brilliant. Now I want to go and read one right now.

Started Drew Gilpin Faust's book This Republic of Suffering, about how Americans dealt with death during the Civil War. Her chapters each deal with a specific part of death--dying, burial, remembering, etc.--and how the Civil War challenged and changed American practices of death and mourning. It's very good so far.

Drew Gilpin Faust is a remarkable name.

She's the new (well, new-ish, I think it's been about a year) president of Harvard.

I had a class on the South taught by her, many moons ago. She was one of those professors who would bring their dogs to class with them.

Never knew such professors existed.

I'm onto the introduction to Bodas de Sangre now. I read a synopsis of it on (English) Wikipedia when I'd finished and discovered that two of the approximately five words I wasn't quite sure as to the meanings of, were absolutely crucial to being able to follow the plot properly. Which explains why I wasn't quite sure what was going at certain points (the other reason being I've been absolutely exhausted all week)...

We had a teacher who used to bring his dog to school, he used to leave it in his Ford escort van during lessons....it was like something from Shameless. Thank (his) god that Keith Joseph closed the school down a few years later.

Elmore Leonard's the reason Guttenberg persevered in my opinion.

Just finished "War Reporting For Cowards" by Chris Ayres. An overstretched mildly amusing account of his time as an accidental war correspondent in Iraq.
Cant decide between Billy Braggs "The Progressive Patriot" or Jeremy Paxmans "The English" for the journey to work tomorrow. Any suggestions?

Finished Vineland on Friday which opened up floodgates and meant that I read Iain Banks's The Business and half of The Human Stain in the last couple of days.