My Struggle Book Two: A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knaugaard

 I read Book One many moons ago and (sort of) remember liking it, after reading about the Knausgaard phenom and being completely prepared to despise it.

So on to Book Two - if nothing else, it gives me something to go to when INFINTE JEST grinds my teeth down to powder (usually three pages).

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

 

Don't know how I've missed reading this book all my life - intriguing fairy tale/children's book about an ugly, misanthropic nobelman hiding away his beautiful daughter from the world, giving suitors impossible tasks to fulfill to win her, then killing them and feeding them to the geese when they fail. An intrepid prince (disguised as a minstrel) enters the scene and wins the girl, helped along by some mysterious Deum de Machina characters.

The wordplay is fascinating and funny and deep. Need to re-read it immediately - and find the edition pictured, with illustrations by M. Searle of DOWN WITH SKOL and Molesworth fame.

The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovitz

 

Sailed right through this - a relief while still laboring away at INFINITE JEST - a short narrative of a disgruntled husband and father dropping his younger daughter off at college and just continuing on, away from his wife, his job, his troubled marriage. 

Interesting, and compelling as far as it goes - but seems to drop out quickly without resolution.

The narrator is easy for me to sympathize with, but I didn't really care about him. Is that cruel? Yes!

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

 

Good characters - but second half of plot gets a little ridiculous with enslaved prostitutes and ring of predator men.