Recent Reading

I'm finally getting around to reading books that I meant to read over a year ago (which seems to happen often with current fiction for me). I just finished Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, which was a fun read--incredibly entertaining, mysterious, and funny. Set in Los Angeles at the end of the 1960s, the novel follows Doc Sportello, a private investigator who is always high, as he investigates the apparent kidnapping of a real estate mogul. This features a wonderfully strange cast of characters, and portrays a deeply fragmented America where everyone is paranoid, especially in light of the recent Manson family murders. I am by no means a Pynchon expert, though I have always loved The Crying of Lot 49, and Inherent Vice ranks right up there for me. I have heard that someone has optioned the movie rights, which could be interesting. I remember the Rolling Stone review of the book compared Sportello to Jeff Bridges's Lebowski from The Big Lebowski.

Now I am reading Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City. I have barely started it, but it is giving me a Paul Auster feel early on. At this rate, I'll get around to reading The Pale King in 2013...

I also have been reading a lot of poetry including Claire Becker's Where We Think It Should Go, James Meetze's Dayglo, Stephanie Anderson's The Nightyard, Kate Greenstreet's Called, Noelle Kocot's The Bigger World (of which I have a review forthcoming at NewPages), and the split book Your Trouble Is Ballooning by Amber Nelson and Arousing Notoriety by A. Minetta Gould. And re-reading Oppen.

Yesterday I had a 9 1/2 hour drive to make and I occupied some of that time listening to the cd the accompanies All Poets Welcome, which made me wonder why I don't listen to more poetry cds while driving. Beyond All Poets Welcome and the Narrow House cds, I don't really have any poetry cds. Can anyone out there recommend some?