Here’s what I got, for a grand total of $43:

• Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
• The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
• Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
• HHhH – Laurent Binet
• Moab is my Washpot: An Autobiography – Stephen Fry
• Herge, Son of Tintin – Benoit Peeters
• Victor Halfwit: A Winter’s Tale – Thomas Bernhard
• Born To Be Brad – Brad Goreski
• Super Boxers – Ron Wilson, John Byrne, Armando Gil

That last one’s a gag gift for a pal of mine. No, really.

I make no excuses about Born To Be Brad, except to say that it makes my Simon Doonan collection look butch.

However, a pal of mine mentioned it as a book she came back to and learned to appreciate a lot. Since I’m interviewing her next month for another podcast, I thought I’d give Chabon’s novel another shot. After all, maybe I was just being overly critical way back when; maybe I was jealous that someone else had tackled a bunch of topics that I’d love to have written about.

Alas, no. I made it around 40 pages further this time, nearly a quarter of the way through the novel, before giving up. The writing is still boring; the story structure makes no sense, with its nested flashbacks without triggers for the sake of building a symbol; the characters are uninteresting; the four-page exposition about the early history of comics may have been necessary, but it was a tedious info-dump. The final straw? A mere footnote, an asterisk that led to a 4-line aside.

Why did that push me over the edge? Because it served no purpose that couldn’t have been achieved within the third-person narration. Even if it was meant as an homage to David Foster Wallace, all it did (for me) was demonstrate that Chabon’s writing sucks and his editor was stealing paychecks.

And really, that latter point could be proved simply by looking at the page count: 640 pages! Was it meant to be a Great American Novel or something? How do you write 300 pages longer than, say, The Leopard, but say so much less?

(Don’t get me started on the chapter-long origin story of the superhero that Kavalier & Clay create. A long paragraph in that story begins with the lead character standing at the door of his mentor, then explains exactly why none of the mentor’s entourage would knock on the door, before explaining that the mentor’s mistress is the one who compelled the lead character to knock on the door. Which he was about to do at the beginning of this lengthy parapgraph and gets around to at the end. Mind-bogglingly shitty, cumbersome writing.)

I felt like I was cheating myself every time I read a few pages, like it was some sort of burden. Good thing this one only cost me $2.62.

NOTE: If you’re interested in a good novel about escape artistry, go read Carter Beats the Devil instead. You’ll thank me once you’ve come up for air.

Virtual Memories – season 2 episode 5 – Look in Your Heart

There’s also a little rant about the publicity-industrial complex, the Avengers, the new book by Robert Caro, and the redemptive powers of a certain margarita-soaked musician.

Credits: This episode’s music is tied into the conversation with John, so you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what it is. I recorded the intro on a Blue Yeti mic, and the conversation with John was recorded on a pair of Blue Encore 100 mics, feeding into a Zoom H4N recorder. The conversation was recorded in an exhibit hall during a trade show, so getting the sound quality up to snuff was a little work.

As ever, bear with me. If you’d like to add a subscription to this podcast through iTunes, follow the instructions at my Podcast Archive. (Where you can find all the previous episodes!) And you can friend the Virtual Memories Show at our Facebook page!

AbeBooks

The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon – I’m planning to read this for a Secondhand Loves podcast with one of my old college pals. I detested it the first time I tried it, complaining, “If you write a novel about comic-book history, Jews in eastern Europe, escape artistry and the golem-myth and you lose me, you’ve seriously fucked up.” We’ll see if I’m still as uninto it. It cost me $2.62, plus shipping

The Last Leopard – David Gilmour – It’s the biography of Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, who wrote The Leopard, one of my favorite novels. Cost $6.75

The Anatomy of Influence – Harold Bloom – I’m sure I’ll spend a little time with it. $8.31

Labyrinth Books

I stopped in Princeton for lunch on the way home from a client visit in Philadelphia, so I hit Labyrinth, which used to be Micawber Books. I found a used copy of Little, Big for $12.74. Amy lent hers out, and I’m hoping to interview the author soon for the podcast, so I picked that up. Still, $12.74 is kinda high for a used paperback. I balanced things out by finding a backup hardcover of George, Being George for $2.

Raider

There was a street fair in Suffern, NY last weekend, as Amy & I discovered when going out to our favorite hole-in-the-wall taqueria in town. We meandered through that, and discovered a little used bookstore in the same building as the Lafayette theater, this great old movie house where I once saw The Empire Strikes Back. The stock wasn’t really my sorta thing, but then I noticed a copy of Mr. Crowley’s Four Freedoms for $4, so I picked that up.

The Strand

While staying in NYC for a conference last week, I hit up the Strand Bookstore on my last night, since my wife & I are content to do that sorta thing. I decided I wouldn’t buy anything over $10, but managed to get by without crossing the $8 barrier:

Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor – I read it in the big ol’ Library of America collected works last year, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a portable copy. $7.95

How Fiction Works – James Wood – I generally like his literary criticism and book reviews. $7.95

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City – Nick Flynn – My pal Elayne loved this one, and implored me to give it a shot. $7.50

The Lost Books of the Odyssey – Zachary Mason – Praised in a recent Five Books interview, I figured I’ll read it some weekend this summer. $5.95

Role Models – John Waters – I’ve always liked John Waters in theory much more than in practice, so I’m hoping the printed page works better for me than the movie/TV screen. $7.95

And that’s my recent book-buying binge. We’re still a few weeks away from having the library finished, but once it’s wrapped up, I’ll be sure to post a ton of pix.

Shakespeare Plays Read

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
2. Antony & Cleopatra
3. As You Like It
4. Coriolanus
5. Hamlet
6. Henry IV I
7. Henry IV II
8. Henry V
9. King Lear
10. Macbeth
11. Merchant of Venice
12. Much Ado About Nothing
13. Othello
14. Richard II
15. The Tempest
16. Winter’s Tale

MLB Parks Visited

1. A’s
2. Angels
3. Blue Jays
4. Braves
5. Diamondbacks
6. Mariners
7. Mets (old)
8. Orioles
9. Padres
10. Phillies (old)
11. Red Sox
12. White Sox
13. Yankees (old)

Virtual Memories – season 2 episode 4 – King of the Road

I tried to keep my interminable opening ramble somewhat terminable this time around. In fact, that part’s almost all a single take (which you can tell because I sorta rushed through it and didn’t hit all the self-deprecating high/low notes the way I’m doing now). If you’d like to skip the rambling and go right to the conversation, it begins at the 4:40 mark.

Credits: This episode’s music is “Oh, Me,” by Nirvana, a cover of a Meat Puppets song from their MTV Unplugged in New York show. I recorded the intro on a Blue Yeti mic, and the conversation with Mark was recorded on a pair of Blue Encore 100 mics, feeding into a Zoom H4N recorder. Those are new acquisitions and I need to fiddle with the settings to get better/clearer signal. As ever, bear with me. If you’d like to add a subscription to this podcast through iTunes, follow the instructions at my Podcast Archive. (Where, of course, you can find all the previous episodes!)

That’s exactly how I ended up with heart palpitations that resulted in an ER visit last September. So I’ve been consciously cutting back the caffeine intake, and trying to get more sleep. And now, with my wife immersed in the season premiere of Game of Thrones, I figured it was about time I started writing things down again.

So: last month. I had a business trip to San Francisco that was pretty entertaining. I’d tell you more, but I’m planning to ramble about in the April installment of my podcast. Which may be delayed a little bit, but I promise it’ll come out this month (or your money back!). See, I’m really intent on getting at least one interview/conversation into each new podcast, and I’ve sorta failed at lining one up. But I’m going to see a pal of mine next weekend, and I think we can have a good conversation for the Virtual Memories Show.

In fact, this weekend I picked up some good microphones and a recorder so I can do remote interviews with good sound quality. So if I show up at your door with a Dopp kit, don’t be afraid that I’m planning to move in; I’m just making a temporary studio in your living room. (Speaking of: lemme know if you want to record a book-oriented conversation sometime!)

I guess the biggest news I have is that we’re building a library. I mean, I’ve been building a library for decades, but now we have a handyman in doing the actual building of a library. We’re taking two rooms downstairs — the rec room and “The Shack,” a guest bedroom where Dad used to keep his HAM radio stuff when we were growing up (short for “Radio Shack,” in other words) — building shelves into the walls above the foundation, tearing down the wall between ‘em, installing lights, and putting in some Pergo faux-wood flooring.

I’d kindasorta wanted to do something like this for years, but it was only when Handyman Lou finished the first phase, installing and painting the bookcases in the rec room, that I really started to get excited. As I started taking my books off the multitude of Ikea Billy bookcases and organizing them on the new shelves, I thought, “This is going to be my home.” (It’ll also have a photo-studio area for Amy to use; no man-cave here.)

So, I suppose my anxiety about this stuff — having someone in the house a lot, having to trust that he’s going to do the job right, having to trust that I’m asking for the right thing — has also preyed on me. I took a couple of “before” pix, but I’ll wait on posting stuff till “after” is ready.

Anyway, that’s the tale I have to tell, I guess. Last week, Amy & I miscommunicated about when her train from NYC was going to arrive at the station in Radburn. As a result, I got there half an hour early. I considered driving over to Garden State Plaza and meandering around for 15-20 minutes, maybe looking at some clothes.

Instead, I drove in the other direction and hit Well Read, a nice indy bookstore in Hawthorne. I’d been doing well with my 2012 austerity plan (admittedly blown up by this weekend’s audio recorder / mics purchase), but all this shelf-space I’m about to gain left me thinking I could pick up some new books. I grabbed used copies of Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson, the subject of last month’s podcast) and Rabbit, Run (I’ve never read Updike) and a new copy of Inherent Vice, Pynchon’s stoner detective novel, which I’m enjoying. I suspect I’d enjoy it more if The Big Lebowski didn’t exist, but whatever.

What I’m saying is, I want a place to read, even if I have more books than I’ll ever get around to.

Virtual Memories – season 2 episode 3 – Ann Rivera

Ann’s a 20-plus-year pal of mine from college, and I was happy to have her be my very first pod-guest! Our conversation was for a new segment on the show: Second Hand Books. The theme is that you tell me about a book or author you once hated but now adore. (Because it’s too easy to talk about books/authors you once loved but are now embarrassed by.)

Give this episode a listen, and if you have a book or author you wanna discuss on the show, drop me a line! I love to learn about how people’s literary tastes change and what those changes say about the way we grow. (No, I don’t have a very interesting life, I admit.)

Looking for past episodes? Check out the Podcast Archive page!

Credits: This episode’s music is Coralia, by Mark Adler, from the Henry & June soundtrack. In the comments, I’ll put a link to this episode’s m4a version, which has my cutesy headshot embedded. Let me know if you have trouble playing the files; I’m still figuring out how to optimize the audio and I’m not sure I’ve got the meta-data correct to file this stuff in iTunes.

• met a guy who recently interviewed William Gass,
• met a guy who read A Dance To The Music Of Time three times already, and
• drove past the Federal Reserve building in East Rutherford, NJ while listening to the B-52s’ Legal Tender.

And that’s my idea of a good time.