The Words of Dr. L and Other Stories by Karen E. Bender

 

Only read the title story and "The Extra Child." Fascinating sci-fi dystopian concepts baldly done.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

 

Tore through 100+ pages late last night without a pause. Brilliant as usual - and a whodunit!

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

 

Another WWII novel from the master. I liked it but didn't love it. It still went down easy though. Another obscure young woman protaganist caught up by forces that are beyond her, starting up with MI5 in 1940 and then with the BBC in 1950.

Spies, counter-spies, and maybe counter-counter-spies. I got lost but enjoyably!

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick

 

Reading the Modern Library edition of five of his early novels.

This one is slow going - a thalidomide quad electronic repairman and the architect of a nuclear holocaust, among other characters. Fascinating as always.

Picks up speed halfway through, as we are suddenly jetted into the future - the late 1980s - from the 1972 starting point when a couple is launched into orbit, and a global thermonuclear war suddenly and literally explodes.

In the 80s, we pick up with survivors, who live their cultural life via nightly transmissions from the orbiting vessel, where the man (who was quickly widowed after the launch, reads aloud from his digital library. Animals have mutated and grow in intelligence, there is a barter economy, and local law and order (and violence).

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

 

Surprised to have never read this. A racial parable as whodunit. Amazing.

History of the Rain by Niall Williams

 

More prose gorgeousness. Reminds me of THE TIN DRUM in its playful, pointed family-history-as-myth-and-larger-history style.

Two-thirds of the way through, it's still a fantastic book - but Williams prose style is laborious with narrative - the language is so rich, the back-story and motifs are so intricate and historical - so it's a bit of an ordeal too.

Definitely echoes (and references) A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, too.

Finally finished and was sad to do so, even with it taking me two long weeks (at least) to finish it. Williams' sure hand and funny, sad mind are a marvel. The story of a family told via the invalid daughter who uses the father's extensive literary library to move along the tale.

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Farina

 

Fantastic lost classic of the 1960s. Farina takes on the end of the Beats era and the coming of the hippies. 

To say it's ahead of its time is to understate the matter completely. Farina's prose is ur-Pynchonian. The inappropriateness of the sexual posturing is beside the point. Complete versimilitude of the unhinged, drug-addled young ambitious tormented mind.

Still plodding through this. By the middle some of the gorgeous language surprise of the beginning has begun to wane - the plot itself is a little limp and undergrad hi-jinks ish.

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

 

Crazy beautiful prose. Has to be read slowly, almost word by word. 

Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick

 

More PKD. He writes sci-fi, but is really interesting in how he addresses human relationships and psychological health under that genre.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

 

Great - but prefer its companion book below.