Miracles of Life by J.G. Ballard

 

A fascinating memoir. Ballard beautifully and deeply engages with his vivid memories of his childhood in Shanghai - first idyllic and strange, then blinkered and strange in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Reading this with pleasure at the same time I'm struggling to finish his 1975 novel HIGH-RISE (and as I have struggled over the years with his science fiction.)

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

 

Struggling with this. Wolfe's style is sweeping and brilliant, but I'm finding it difficult to engage with any of the characters - or the narrator. Is that what his style of journlism was all about?  A favorite of mine, BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME by Dennis Farina, has much more gravity for me: I identify with, marvel at, pull for, and end up loving the doomed narrator.