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10 favorite books of 2009

paperhaus December 4th, 2009

The LA Times list of favorite books of 2009 is now online, a total of 50 books in two parts, fiction/poetry and nonfiction. It’s a master list that is compiled by the editors; some of my suggestions made it. But not all.

I’m not including all the books that I loved in 2009, but right at this moment, here are 10 of my favorites, in alpha order by author, including a few I haven’t even read.

Invisible by Paul Auster (haven’t read it, but I really really want to read it)

Ablutions by Patrick deWitt (from bad to worse, told with raw precision, in a sleazy Hollywood bar)

I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett (haven’t read this either, but sometimes favorites are those books that are all potential)

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (if you can eat chicken after reading this book, you’re not well)

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (like Ms. Kakutani said, except the opposite)

Generosity by Richard Powers (I loved The Echo Maker so much that I don’t believe his follow up could possibly let me down)

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Sixties, smart, silly, streamlined Pynchon that’s about the end of mystery while masquerading as a detective fiction).

A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (the true story of two Angelenos whose intersecting lives capture two aspects of the city in a critical defining era)

When Skateboards Will Be Free by Said Sayrafiezadeh (memoir of growing up red & poor in the 70s & 80s)

Far North by Marcel Theroux (when civilization crumbles, head to Siberia and follow Makepeace’s lead)

PEN tonight

paperhaus December 2nd, 2009

Heading to the PEN USA West awards tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In my many years in LA, I’ve never before been to the pink icon of Beverly Hillsiness. Nor have I been to the PEN Awards, actually. Last year Veronique was tweeting the winners to me, but this year she’s in Guadalajara with many other LA writers at the massive book fair. I guess it’s up to me to tweet — so I will, right here.

We wear glasses, read books and like cats.

paperhaus November 18th, 2009

That’s my mom at age 13 in 1955. The name of the cat is long forgotten.

Sarah Palin’s book is not a book

paperhaus November 17th, 2009

I know it comes between covers and is sold in bookstores. But it’s not a book, it’s a celebrity media push. Maybe it’s a campaign advertisement. Maybe it’s a talk show audition. Maybe it’s a prelude to a line of “you betcha!” ladies huntingwear — who knows. But whatever it is, “Going Rogue” is not a book in the way we book people think of books.

Have I read it? No. I’d rather read Edmund Morris’ “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,” even though it’s a) about Ronald Reagan and b) has a questionable historical fiction conceit. Because at least that was a book.

downloading Kindle for iPhone

paperhaus March 4th, 2009

Now I just need to find a couple of ebooks and take the thing out for a spin.

how I ended up getting my name in the New Yorker

paperhaus March 3rd, 2009

I took a picture of artwork based on the writing of David Foster Wallace (it’s the 3rd slide).

I didn’t know Wallace; I just happened to be near the artwork when it needed a photo taken. And I had a digital camera in my backpack.

So: if you really want to get into the New Yorker, I say, carry a camera.

Writing well probably helps. But carrying a digital camera can’t hurt.

what is punk?

paperhaus March 1st, 2009

Cecil Castellucci’s book Beige is coming out in paperback, and to celebrate she’s asked a bunch of people to giver her punk music lists. Mine is personal, rather than definitive — but it includes videos! Because Douglas Wolk included videos in his list, and it seemed like a good idea.

BTW, I cannot quote Dashiell Hammett. Cecil has confused him with Raymond Chandler, over whose writing I swoon.

How to get your library fees waived.

paperhaus February 3rd, 2009

Not that hard, right?

Dennis Loy Right-on

paperhaus January 30th, 2009

Sometimes Dennis Loy Johnson and I are thinking much the same thing. So close, in fact, it’s spooky.

But never fear, we are still easy to distinguish. He remains far taller than me.

By the time I get to Arizona

paperhaus January 23rd, 2009

Driving into Tucson I used the roadtrip-enabling device (iPhone) to find a place to stay. The Hotel Congress was built in 1919 across from the train depot. It doesn’t have TVs in the rooms; instead it has crackly vintage radios which match the vintage furniture well. The entertainment (if you’re not reading) comes in the form of two bars downstairs: the bar-bar, pictured from its patio, and the rock-club-bar, which had 80s night dancing that night (I passed on that — I was reading).

Not long after I got back to LA I was talking to a total stranger about Tucson and told him I stayed in the Hotel Congress. He was thrilled — did I go to the cafe? And yes, I had. The hotel also has a cafe, and it has a big wide lobby with chairs and another bar and wifi, all of which I guess count as more entertainment. Anyway, the Cup Cafe’s breakfast was delicious. Did I notice the floor? Why yes I had: layers of pennies below a hard clear surface. Did I know how many pennies were there, he asked?

Um, no.

Something like 180,000.

Apparently they were counted before being embedded in the floor.

Tonight Howe Gelb is performing in the cafe with Wolvenhand. Howe Gelb was (is?) the main guy behind Giant Sand. Wolvenhand is David Eugene Edwards, who was the lead singer of 16 Horsepower.

Really wish they’d been on the bill when I was crashing upstairs.

But I guess I’ll just have to go back to Arizona (especially now that they have Martin Luther King Day, I can do so without guilt).

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