carolyn kellogg

#45 – Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro. Wow and wow and wow. Was I lured in because the first story is set in a sort of post-apocalypic Pittsburgh suburb? Naw. It’s just wow.

#46 – Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. Almost all the characters in this story collection are, when you scratch the surface, the exact same taciturn westerner. The few that aren’t DIE. Yep, this is the book that concludes with “Brokeback Mountain.” Whoop dee do.

#47 – I Sailed With Magellan by Stuart Dybeck. Another collection of stories, but this one is, like, good. Brilliant portrayal of childhood, great evocation of an urban neighborhood over time, a bunch of stuff about brotherliness. What a dork am I for not reading it sooner.

#48 – Surviving Mae West by Priscilla Rodd. When Ms. Rodd came to visit Pittsburgh, I knew she’d have some good stories to tell. One is this book — or maybe, many are in this book? — written in diary form. Others will be in her upcoming podcast.

#49 – The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. Sometimes a runaway hit doesn’t suck. This felt like one enormous-on sentence from a very funny psychotic. Which is not at all a bad thing.

#50 – Hollywood Life: The Fabulous Homes of Vintage Hollywood by Eliot Elisofon. Stars in their gloriously garish homes in the 1960s, full color, fantastic photos. Tony Curtis inset on the cover, classic white moroccan-spanish mansion behind him, wearing a chocolate pansuit and posing with an irish setter. Plus it’s flocked. The cover is brown and flocked.

#51 – Blue Angel by Francine Prose. An older writing professor falls for an undergraduate and pathetic hilarity ensues. Not surprisingly, a hit with those who’ve sat through writing workshops. But carrying it around on campus makes you feel kinda dirty.

#52 – significant chunks of 6 books on film noir, which I’m piling into one single book for this tally: Blackout – World War II and the Origins of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen; Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity by Edward Dimendberg; Film Noir Reader, eds Alain Silver and James Ursini; Film Noir Reader 4, eds Alain Silver and James Ursini; and More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts by James Naremore. That Naremore, he’s pretty fantastic (wrong in his dislike of LA Confidential, but fantastic nonetheless).

Maybe if the Pynchon wasn’t waggling 1,100 pages at me, if there weren’t a stack of hefty LBC books begging to be finished, if Pitt weren’t doing this faculty search that I get to be a part of, maybe if there weren’t other reading and, hey, writing pressures — oh, who am I kidding. It’s December 13 and I’m at #52. I won’t make it to 75. But I’m counting up until the last minute. And next year (shakes fist at sky) … next year!