Pile of Books, Continued

What I’ve read so far in 2007. (Some (most?) of those super short reviews probably suck, sorry they were written quickly).

Dorian: An Imitation, Will Self. A contemporary retelling of Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (which I read a couple years ago) where a multimedia installation takes the place of a painting and AIDS takes part in the destruction of Dorian’s alter ego. The original is still the best but much much much better than most remakes.

Death Match , Lincoln Child. HAL meets a dating service and a detective story. Not Child’s best but still the great mix of technology, thrill and fast pace that makes his books automatic pickups for me.

The Geographer’s Library, Jon Fasman. Follows the investigation of a young reporter looking into the death of an old geezer with no friends and at the same time the history of various artifacts through the ages. Well written, imaginative and some fun characters. Recommended if you like the world of Indiana Jones (not the action, the settings) and The Club Dumas (the book, not the movie).

JPod, Douglas Coupland. The man from Vancouver back in top form with a sequel (but not a sequel) of the brilliant Microserfs. Funny as hell, very astute observations and the author is present as himself in a very tongue in cheek manner.

The Wisdom Of Crowds, James Surowiecki. Must read for the same reasons as The Long Tail in my previous post. No need to say more, just Google.

Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs. A hard to believe memoir of Burroughs’ weird weird childhood. An interesting world to explore and well told.

Goodbye Tsugumi, Banana Yoshimoto. A tender and not so tender beautifully told story of friendship.

Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre. Took me a while to pick this winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize because the story (from the book jacket) didn’t interest me but I was wrong. I loved it. Mixes columbine like events with media analysis, coming of age, small town behavior and a bunch of other things. Superb writing using language that perfectly delivers the tone and speech of the characters.

Analog In, Digital Out, Brendan Dawes. I read this days after his brilliant talk with Jim Coudal at SXSW so I’m not sure how much of my appreciation comes from that recent experience and the discussion we had at one of the parties but either way, if you design/create stuff or like design and creation, pick it up. (mine is signed :-p)

That’s it, I’m up to date on my cheap ass reviews, hopefully from now on I’ll write them right after so I can say more about them. It also shows that I’m 3 books late on a one a week schedule which isn’t too bad, especially since I don’t really follow that week on week beat, I just read as much as I can and try to keep it an average. For example five of the nine so far were read during the week in Cuba and the 1-2 days following it while Vernon God Little was stuck in my bag all the way around the continent for 3 weeks and I read Analog In, Digital Out on the many planes back from Austin.