You Should Live Here #8

The Fraternity Hall at Elkhorn, Montana. Like my father always says, "Silver mining towns of the late nineteenth century are the ghost towns of today." So true. 

The Ghost Town Gallery is enough to let your mind run wild, if you're into that sort of thing. Me, I see this I think of Vienna's saloon in Johnny Guitar. Nicholas Ray lovers represent.

I would run a comparison still but apparently I didn't see fit to include Johnny Guitar in my collection. And the internet sucks.

Hermit Book Club #0

"For office use only."

Minimal commentary on these for the moment, but let me know if you want to talk about any of them. Really, this is just for my own reference. I feel like I'm forgetting something...

Fall 2010

You Never Give Me Your Money, Peter Doggett (Discussed here.)

Portnoy's Complaint, Phillip Roth (It was strange reading this in public.)

Summer 2010
American Pastoral, Phillip Roth (A marsh you like swimming in.)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon (Epic.)
The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz (Indelicate and uneven, but a hard narrative to ruin.)
Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem (A slow wade into a superhero story.)
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of a New Hollywood, Mark Harris (Superb non-fiction.)
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (Actually that good.)


Christmas 2009
Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay (I did not enjoy this.)
Nikolski, Nicolas Dickner (Thankfully, sparse.)
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga (Read it, because you can.)
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam (Barely remembered, but I seemed to enjoy it.)

Unfinished or Abandoned
Chronicles, Volume One, Bob Dylan (So. Many. Names. I'll finish it, it's worth it.)
Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman (Trying to understand the kids.)
The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie (It's a long story.)
Underworld, Don DeLillo. (Fascinating and sprawling, but couldn't renew it.)
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson (What textbooks should be, and abandoned accordingly.)

How to Look Good #13

"I am writing my latest collection exclusively on transatlantic flights."

You Should Live Here #7

When possible, one should always live as a miniature.

(So many more here.)

Post-Hiatus Apology #1

Long-distance girlfriends trump budding weblogs, every time.

Also, I've been writing a novel (cf. National Novel Writing Month). It won't be done by November 30, but it will be fifty thousand words by then. And I might have learned a thing or two. A Certain Pretendency is seeming like a December project, when movies become interesting again.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. (Have you added this to your RSS feed yet?)