Shifty shmook shmallenge.

The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño. This is a book that I wish I had enjoyed more. On a sentence-to-sentence level, yes, the writing (or partly the translation, I guess) was extraordinary. But I suspect that if, like me, you know not even the first thing about the Mexican literary scene circa 1976-96, then much of this story will be lost on you. Once again Latin American fiction leaves me cold, dammit! Recommended if you have ever been south of the border. James Wood's rave in the NYT here; Slate review here.

50 book slog.

The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, Edward C. Banfield. Amoral familism -- catch it! I long for the good old days of social science research, when you could land in a dirt-poor Italian village, rely on your hard-working wife to translate all of your subjects' conversations, then basically write a longish diary entry padded with a chapter in which you coin a new phrase, and publish it. Ok, that is too harsh. This was pathbreaking work in its day, to give it its due.

 

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Sadly, my expectations for this book were perhaps too great, because I was a tad disappointed. For one thing, too long! Look, editors, just because you have a very very good first novel on your hands (I'm looking at you, whoever edited Ms. Niffenberger), it doesn't mean you shouldn't feel free to, like, chop the thing by a third. Anyway, in this instance, I felt like the book lacked significantly for plot propulsiveness in the first half or so, though at the same time it was a wonderful introduction to an alternative, magical history of England. Blurb comparisons to Austen (!) on the jacket were way wide of the mark. Still, I am an overly critical person, and thus I have to say -- much recommended.

Mavis Beacon lives.

It's time for TypeRacer!

Frick and Frack.

Frick is dead.

Signs.

The Pittsburgh Signs project.

An oldie but a goodie.

Who shot Alexander Hamilton?

Maybe someday.

I want to buy a train car and then travel in it. How do I do this?

Some photos from my recent trip to S.F.

San Francisco

Trip to Arizona

Our little family took our first vacation together in Arizona -- Phoenix, Sedona/Red Rock country, and the Grand Canyon. We also combined it with a visit to Jeanne's cousin Angie, who lives in Phoenix.

Phoenix, Red Rock country, and Grand Canyon

50 book challenge

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five.

Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles.

Having just returned from a quick business trip to San Francisco (my first time in the city), parents, here's my advice: do not let your children visit this place (or California, more generally) before they are, oh, twenty-one or so. Otherwise you will ruin them on the possibility of living anywhere else. Lucky me!