the fiction report...

here you go andre. these are basically the last few books i've read and enjoyed.



iris murdoch, the sea the sea
this was a recomendation from high life and i read it in barbados and it was off the charts excellent. about an english playwright who retires to a sea side cottage and goes a little bit crazy with some suprisingly hilarious and disturbing results.



curtis sittenfeld, prep
a great book despite a sort of terrible cover. it's about a young girl from indiana who goes to a boarding school called ault in the book, but actually supposed to be groton. recommended for all of you that went to boarding school. the girl is exactley my age and once i got over my jealousy that she had written such a good book, i read this thing in a couple of days.



haruki murakami, kafka on the shore
haven't read this yet, but it's on deck once my mom finishes it. this guy is a favorite and i will read just about anything he's written. particularly recomend the wild sheep chase.



alasdair gray, lanark
only the greatest scottish novel of the 20th century. need i say more? seriously though, this one was particularly wierd and almost sci-fi in a lot of ways, but very satisfying. won't even try to explain it.



t.c. boyle, the inner circle
am currently reading this one. it's a novel written from the perspective of one of alfred kinsey's sex researchers during the 40's. lots of dirty parts and boyle is one of the best story tellers going. know that little birdie read drop city, which was all about hippies that move to alaska and freak out a little bit. sort of hair meets lord of the flies. both books are great.



p.g. wodehouse
i've been reading a lot of his short stories lately and he's actually hilarious. he writes a lot about golf, which doesn't hurt and he's very funny. it's a lot of jeeves the butler and sort of upper crusty british society, but it's very well done. maybe not for everyone, but if you give it a chance i bet you like it.



david mitchell, cloud atlas
this was one of the best new books i've read in a while. hard to explain, but worth reading. after this i also read number 9 dream (his second book) which was also great.



russell banks, continental drift
this one is mostly for mac fu, who would love the florida keys element to this book as well as the freaky hatian voodoo parts. not sure if the rest of you would be that into it, but i liked it.