Monday, May 11, 2015

Verbivoracious Festschrift 3: The Syllabus



G.N. Forester and M.J. Nicholls, ed.: Verbivoracious Festschrift Volume 3:
The Syllabus
(2015)


I was a little surprised, last year, to be invited to contribute a piece to the above festschrift from Singapore-based alternative literature publisher Verbivoracious Press. They appear to specialise principally in the work of British writer Christine Brooke-Rose (1923-2012), many of whose books they have reprinted. The title of the above compilation, "The Syllabus," though, shows that they also aspire to represent a whole universe of experimental writing - what might be called (in Roger Horrocks' phrase) the Kingdom of Alt.



Adam Thirlwell: Miss Herbert: An Essay in Five Parts (2007)


The book Mark Nicholls wanted me to write about was Miss Herbert (2007), by British novelist Adam Thirlwell. The reason this surprised me was that he based the request on the blogpost I'd written about it, a piece which strikes me (in retrospect) as rather unkind - though I certainly don't subscribe there to any of the more ad hominem attacks Thirlwell's book received in the more up-themselves reviews.

We quickly rejected the idea of compiling an essay from the blog itself, and instead I decided to take the licence he offered to compose a more "creative" piece taking off from Thirlwell's book (which rejoices in a number of titles in America and Britain, my favourite being the one on the spine of the paperback edition: Miss Herbert: A book of novels, romances, and their translators, containing ten languages, set on four continents, and accompanied by maps, portraits, squiggles and illustrations ...

Each contributor was limited to 500 words, and it must have been a devil of a job to assemble them all, since it was only last week that I was at last alerted to the appearance of the compilation:
A monument to our insatiable verbivoracity, The Syllabus is an act of humble genuflection before the authors responsible for those texts which have transported us to the peak of readerly nirvana and back. The texts featured, chosen in a rapturous frenzy by editors and contributors alike, represent a broad sweep of the most important exploratory fiction written in the last hundred years (and beyond). Featuring 100 texts from (fewer than) 100 contributors, The Syllabus is a form of religious creed, and should be read primarily as a holy manual from which the reader draws inspiration and hope, helping to shape their intellectual and moral life with greater awareness, and lead them towards those works that offer deep spiritual succour while surviving on a merciless and unkind planet. Readers of this festschrift should expect nothing less than an incontrovertible conversion from reader to insatiable verbivore in 225 pages.

The Syllabus, as a third volume of Verbivoracious Festschrift, is a celebration of reading. It’s a great literary feast for the true readers, for all the verbivores around the world, a feast consisting of hundred delicious meals. I am honored to be a part of that unforgettable menu.” — Dubravka Ugrešić.

And what exactly is in it? Here's a list of the contents, arranged (as you can see) in chronological order:
    Introduction or, The Art of Sillybustering
      The Editors
  1. Jonathan Swift — A Modest Proposal [1729]
      Scott Beauchamp
  2. Laurence Sterne — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [1759]
      Silvia Barlaam
  3. Xiao Hong (萧红) — The Field of Life and Death [1935]
      Wee Teck Lim
  4. Louis-Ferdinand Céline — Death on the Installment Plan [1936]
      Paul John Adams
  5. Rayner Heppenstall — The Blaze of Noon [1939]
      Juliet Jacques
  6. James Joyce — Finnegans Wake [1939]
      Fionnuala Nic Mheanmán
  7. Flann O’Brien — At Swim-Two-Birds [1939]
      Edwin Turner
  8. Raymond Queneau — Exercises in Style [1947]
      Geoff Wilt
  9. Boris Vian — Foam of the Daze [1947]
      Tosh Berman
  10. Douglas Woolf — The Hypocritic Days [1955]
      Ammiel Alcalay
  11. Henry Miller — Quiet Days in Clichy [1956]
      G.N. Forester
  12. Muriel Spark — The Comforters [1957]
      Kim Fay
  13. Alexander Trocchi — Cain’s Book [1960]
      Gill Tasker
  14. Michel Butor — Mobile [1962]
      John Trefry
  15. Robert Pinget — The Inquisitory [1962]
      ???
  16. B.S. Johnson — Omnibus [1964-1971]
      Nicolas Tredell
  17. Raymond Queneau — The Blue Flowers [1965]
      Inez Hedges
  18. Alan Burns — Celebrations [1967]
      Joseph Andrew Darlington
  19. Guillermo Cabrera Infante — Three Trapped Tigers [1967]
      Pablo Medina
  20. Macedonia Fernández — The Museum of Eterna’s Novel [1967]
      Steve Penkevich
  21. Anna Kavan — Ice [1967]
      Kristine Rabberman
  22. J.M.G Le Clézio — Terra Amata [1967]
      Keith Moser
  23. Flann O’Brien — The Third Policeman [1967]
      Alex Johnston
  24. Ishmael Reed — The Freelance Pallbearers [1967]
      Joseph McGrath
  25. Christine Brooke-Rose — Between [1968]
      Katarzyna Bartoszyńska
  26. Anthony Earnshaw & Eric Thacker — Musrum [1968]
      Kenneth Cox
  27. Nicholas Mosley — Impossible Object [1968]
      Shiva Rahbaran
  28. Vladimir Nabokov — Ada or Ardor [1969]
      Rob Friel
  29. J.G. Ballard — The Atrocity Exhibition [1970]
      Rick McGrath
  30. Pierre Guyotat — Eden Eden Eden [1970]
      Peter Blundell
  31. Raymond Federman — Double or Nothing [1971]
      Lance Olsen
  32. Hubert Selby Jnr. — The Room [1971]
      Georgina Holland
  33. Stanley Crawford — Log of the S.S. the Mrs Unguentine [1972]
      Stephen Sparks
  34. Tom Mallin — Erowina [1972]
      Nate Dorr
  35. Ann Quin — Tripticks [1972]
      Francis Booth
  36. Guy Davenport — Taitlin! [1974]
      Eric Byrd
  37. Lawrence Durrell — The Avignon Quintet [1974-1985]
      Nadine Mainard
  38. Chrisine Brooke-Rose — Thru [1975]
      David Detrich
  39. Georges Perec — An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris [1975]
      Lauren Elkin
  40. Fernando del Paso — Palinuro of Mexico [1976]
      Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
  41. Coleman Dowell — Island People [1976]
      Eugene H. Hayworth
  42. Raymond Federman — Take It or Leave It [1976]
      Steve Katz
  43. Italo Calvino — If on a winter’s night a traveller [1979]
      Silvia Barlaam
  44. Gilbert Sorrentino — Mulligan Stew [1979]
      M.J. Nicholls
  45. Roald Dahl — The Twits [1980]
      Harold Lad
  46. Donald Barthelme — Sixty Stories [1981]
      Lee Klein
  47. Alexander Theroux — Darconville’s Cat [1981]
      Steven Moore
  48. Camilo José Cela — Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son [1982]
      Rosalyn Drexler
  49. D. Keith Mano — Take Five [1982]
      Nathan Gaddis
  50. Thomas Bernhard — Woodcutters [1984]
      Anonymous
  51. Christine Brooke-Rose — Amalgamemnon [1984]
      Ellen G. Friedman
  52. Rikki Ducornet — The Stain [1984]
      Michelle Ryan-Sautour
  53. Christoph Meckel — The Figure on the Boundary Line [1984]
      Ben Winch
  54. Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Male Edition) [1984]
      Alec Nevala-Lee
  55. Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Female Edition) [1984]
      Silvia Barlaam
  56. Don Delillo — White Noise [1985]
      Barbara Melville
  57. Gilbert Sorrentino — Pack of Lies Trilogy [1985-1989]
      Dick Witherspoon
  58. Ronald Sukenick — In Form: Digressions on the Act of Fiction [1985]
      Tom Willard
  59. Marcel Bénabou — Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books [1986]
      A. Writer
  60. Michael Westlake — Imaginary Women [1987]
      Michael Westlake
  61. Nicholson Baker — The Mezzanine [1988]
      M.J. Nicholls
  62. Italo Calvino — Six Memos for the Next Millennium [1988]
      Daniel Levin Becker
  63. David Markson — Wittgenstein’s Mistress [1988]
      Christopher WunderLee
  64. Janice Galloway — The Trick is to Keep Breathing [1989]
      Gillian Devine
  65. Jacques Roubaud — The Great Fire of London [1989]
      Ian Monk
  66. Felipe Alfau — Chromos [1990]
      Sam Moss
  67. Robert Alan Jamieson — A Day at the Office [1991]
      Rodge Glass
  68. Alasdair Gray — Poor Things [1992]
      Rodge Glass
  69. W.G. Sebald — The Emigrants [1992]
      Peter Bebergal
  70. William Gaddis — A Frolic of His Own [1994]
      Christopher WunderLee
  71. Jáchym Topol — City Sister Silver [1994]
      Alex Zucker
  72. Martin Amis — The Information [1995]
      Anthony Vacca
  73. William H. Gass — The Tunnel [1995]
      H.L. Hix
  74. Gilbert Sorrentino — Red the Fiend [1995]
      Jenny Offill
  75. Roberto Bolaño — Nazi Literature in the Americas [1996]
      Adrian Carney
  76. Geoff Dyer — Out of Sheer Rage [1997]
      Kathleen Heil
  77. Alasdair Brotchie & Harry Mathews (eds.) — Oulipo Compendium [1998]
      Jason Graff
  78. Dubravka Ugrešić — The Museum of Unconditional Surrender [1998]
      Jasmina Lukić
  79. Percival Everett — Glyph [1999]
      Tom Conoboy
  80. Ali Smith — Other Stories and Other Stories [1999]
      M.J. Nicholls
  81. Ignácio de Loloya Brandão — Anonymous Celebrity [2002]
      Ricki Aklon
  82. Curtis White — Requiem [2002]
      Trevor Dodge
  83. Lucy Ellmann — Dot in the Universe [2003]
      Ali Millar
  84. Dubravka Ugrešić — Thank You for Not Reading [2003]
      Ana Stanojevic
  85. Roberto Bolaño — 2666 [2004]
      Alex Cox
  86. Meredith Brosnan — Mr. Dynamite [2004]
      Jarleth L. Prendergast
  87. David Mitchell — Cloud Atlas [2004]
      Stephen Mirabito
  88. Steve Katz — Antonello’s Lion [2005]
      W.C. Bamberger
  89. Graham Rawle — Woman’s World [2005]
      Michael Leong
  90. Gilbert Adair — The Evadne Mount Trilogy [2006-2009]
      Manny Rayner
  91. Nicola Barker — Darkmans [2007]
      Kinga Burger
  92. Lydia Davis — Varieties of Disturbance [2007]
      Ali Millar
  93. Lydie Salvayre — Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal [2007]
      Juliet Jacques
  94. Adam Thirwell — Miss Herbert [2007]
      Jack Ross
  95. Urmuz — Collected Works [2007]
      Eddie Watkins
  96. Marilyn Chin — Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen [2009]
      Melanie Ho
  97. Gabriel Josipovici — Only Joking [2010]
      Gianni Dane
  98. Steven Moore — The Novel: An Alternative History [2010-2013]
      Nathan Gaddis
  99. Will Self — Walking to Hollywood [2010]
      Richard Strachan
  100. Charles Newman — In Partial Disgrace [2013]
      Eric Lundgren
  101. The Influences of Others
      Igo Wodan

What, no Raymond Roussel, you say? No this person, no that? Instead of such carping, let's just celebrate all the weird and wonderful texts they have managed to include in their roll-call of 100+:
Texts:

A Modest Proposal — The Avignon Quintet — The Comforters — Finnegans Wake — In Partial Disgrace — Impossible Object — Wittgenstein’s Mistress — The Freelance Pallbearers — Foam of the Daze — Between — Darconville’s Cat — Thru — Terra Amata — Poor Things — Pack of Lies — Amalgamemnon — Anonymous Celebrity — The Stain — Palinuro of Mexico — Miss Herbert — Tristram Shandy — The Mezzanine — White Noise — Glyph — The Twits — Woodcutters — Erowina — Chromos — A Day at the Office — Darkmans — The Evadne Mount Trilogy — Mobile — An Attempt to Exhaust a Place in Paris — The Trick is to Keep Breathing — The Great Fire of London — Thank You For Not Reading — Exercises in Style — Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books — B.S. Johnson Omnibus — Six Memos for the Next Millennium — Sixty Stories — Requiem — Mrs Caldwell Speaks to Her Son — The Atrocity Exhibition — Walking to Hollywood — At Swim-Two-Birds — The Death of the Author — Dot in the Universe — Eco: On Literature — Dictionary of the Khazars — The Novel: An Alternate History — Varieties of Disturbance — Mr. Dynamite — The Blue Flowers — Portrait of the Artist as a Domesticated Animal  — The Tunnel — Oulipo Compendium — In Form: Digressions in the Art of Fiction — Take it or Leave it — If on a winter’s night a traveller — The Information — Double or Nothing — The Hypocritic Days — Berg — 2666 — The Inquisitory — Woman’s World — Museum of Eterna’s Novel — The Blaze of Noon — Musrum — Island People — Take Five — Death on Credit — Three Trapped Tigers — Cain’s Book — Invisible Cities — Out of Sheer Rage — Log of the S.S. Mrs Unguentine — The Room — Revenge of the Moon Vixen — Mulligan Stew — Ice — Red the Fiend — Urmuz: Complete Works — Ada — Taitlin! — Celebrations — The Figure on the Boundary Line — City Silver Sister — Nazi Literature in the Americas — The Emigrants — Other Stories and Other Stories — The Third Policeman — Antonello’s Lion — Cloud Atlas — Imaginary Women — The Museum of Unconditional Surrender — Eden Eden Eden — Quiet Days in Clichy


Contributors:

Scott Beauchamp — Kim Fay — Igo Wodan — Fionnuala McManamon — Eric Lundgren — Shiva Rahbaran — Joseph McGrath — Tosh Berman — Katarzyna Bartoszyńska — David Detrich — Ellen Friedman — Steven Moore — Keith Moser — Rodge Glass — Michelle Ryan-Santour — Jack Ross — Silvia Barlaam — Tom Conoboy — Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado — M.J. Nicholls — Barbara Melville — Nate Dorr — Sam Moss — Kinga Burger — Manny Rayner — John Trefry — Lauren Elkin — Gillian Devine —Ian Monk — Peter Blundell — Ana Stanojevic — Geoff Wilt — Nicolas Tredell — Daniel Levin Becker — Lee Klein — Lance Olsen — Trevor Dodge — Rosalyn Drexler — Rick McGrath — Richard Strachan — Edwin Turner — Ali Millar — Alec Nevala-Lee — Nathan Gaddis — Alberta Rigid — Jarleth L. Prenderghast —Inez Hedges — Juliet Jacques — H.L. Hix — Jason Graff — Tom Willard — Steve Katz — Anthony Vacca — Ammiel Almacay — Lee Rourke — Alex Cox — Michael Leong — Eric Byrd — Steve Penkevich — Kenneth Cox — Gene Hayworth — Paul John Adams — Pablo Medina — Gill Tasker — Kathleen Heil — Georgina Holland — Stephen Sparks — Anonymous — Melanie Ho — Jenny Offill — Kristine Rabberman — Eddie Watkins — Rob Friel — Joseph Andrew Darlington — Alex Zucker — Ben Winch — Alex Johnston — W.C. Bamberger — Stephen Mirabito — Michael Westlake — Peter Bebergal — Jasmina Lukić — Nadine Mainard G.N. Forester

Here are the publication details:
Release Date:

May 11th, 2015. ISBN: 9789810935931. 237pp.

Pricing Information:

Paperback: GBP9.99 + postage GBP2.00 within UK, US, AU, CAN, EU, ZA, NZ, IN and SG.

Available from:

all booksellers and usual online retailers, or the Verbivoracious website at sales@verbivoraciouspress.org

I've got a good mind to use it precisely as they suggest: as a syllabus for the new course in "Advanced Fiction" I'm planning (to commence at Massey Albany in 2017). Maybe that's a bit cheeky, but it'll certainly be listing it as a recommended text for the students.

Go on, then, test yourself. Just how many of the above books have you actually read? How many have you even heard of, for that matter? Not even Richard Taylor would score 100% on that one, I suspect. Scott Hamilton, perhaps?



Jack Ross: Kingdom of Alt (2010)


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a truly incredible list. I just wish I had more time to read . . . everything on this list. But I will try and go back and just pick one work at random.

Dr Jack Ross said...

I found that I'd read about a quarter of the books listed, and heard of about half.

It just goes to show how much wacked-out material there is out there!

Richard said...

I have that book by Thirlwell. I added it to my collection as I was sorting those books out I had for sale to it. But I hadn't even looked at it, I'd forgotten your Blog post and my own comment on it. I did Wiki it and kept it along with a lot of other bizarre stuff...

Richard said...

'...even Richard Taylor...' Lol.
Here are those I have and, indeed, mostly I haven't. In two (?)posts...

Jonathan Swift — A Modest Proposal [1729] [Have read]
Scott Beauchamp
Laurence Sterne — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [1759] [Have read]
Silvia Barlaam
Xiao Hong (萧红) — The Field of Life and Death [1935] [Don't know it]
Wee Teck Lim
Louis-Ferdinand Céline — Death on the Installment Plan [1936] [I'm reading another book by him]
Paul John Adams [No]
Rayner Heppenstall — The Blaze of Noon [1939] [No]
Juliet Jacques [No]
James Joyce — Finnegans Wake [1939] [In parts]
Fionnuala Nic Mheanmán
Flann O’Brien — At Swim-Two-Birds [1939][Yes! Good book!]
Edwin Turner
Raymond Queneau — Exercises in Style [1947][Yes! Fun to read!]
Geoff Wilt
Boris Vian — Foam of the Daze [1947] [No]
Tosh Berman
Douglas Woolf — The Hypocritic Days [1955] [No]
Ammiel Alcalay
Henry Miller — Quiet Days in Clichy [1956] [Have read other books by HM]
G.N. Forester [No]
Muriel Spark — The Comforters [1957]
[Read one book by Spark, not that one] Kim Fay
Alexander Trocchi — Cain’s Book [1960] [I've seen it somewhere]
Gill Tasker
Michel Butor — Mobile [1962] [No]
John Trefry
Robert Pinget — The Inquisitory [1962][No]
???
B.S. Johnson — Omnibus [1964-1971] [Read others by Johnson]
Nicolas Tredell
Raymond Queneau — The Blue Flowers [1965][No]
Inez Hedges
Alan Burns — Celebrations [1967]
Joseph Andrew Darlington
Guillermo Cabrera Infante — Three Trapped Tigers [1967]
Pablo Medina
Macedonia Fernández — The Museum of Eterna’s Novel [1967]
Steve Penkevich [No to all those above]
Anna Kavan — Ice [1967] [Yes!]
Kristine Rabberman
J.M.G Le Clézio — Terra Amata [1967]
Keith Moser
Flann O’Brien — The Third Policeman [1967]
Alex Johnston
Ishmael Reed — The Freelance Pallbearers [1967]
Joseph McGrath
Christine Brooke-Rose — Between [1968]
Katarzyna Bartoszyńska
Anthony Earnshaw & Eric Thacker — Musrum [1968]
Kenneth Cox
Nicholas Mosley — Impossible Object [1968]
Shiva Rahbaran [No to the above.]
Vladimir Nabokov — Ada or Ardor [1969] [I have read about 6 Nabokov's but not that]
Rob Friel [No]
J.G. Ballard — The Atrocity Exhibition [1970] [Got keen on Ballard via Jack Ross and Scott Hamilton]
Rick McGrath
Pierre Guyotat — Eden Eden Eden [1970]
Peter Blundell
Raymond Federman — Double or Nothing [1971] [Put I have another book by him]
Lance Olsen
Hubert Selby Jnr. — The Room [1971][Not this but 'Last Exit to Brooklyn']
Georgina Holland
Stanley Crawford — Log of the S.S. the Mrs Unguentine [1972]
Stephen Sparks
Tom Mallin — Erowina [1972]
Nate Dorr
Ann Quin — Tripticks [1972]
Francis Booth [None of the above group]
Guy Davenport — Taitlin! [1974] [Read his essays and some poems of]
Eric Byrd
Lawrence Durrell — The Avignon Quintet [1974-1985]
Nadine Mainard
Chrisine Brooke-Rose — Thru [1975]
David Detrich [None of these]
Georges Perec — An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris [1975] {Have read other books by Perec]
Lauren Elkin
Fernando del Paso — Palinuro of Mexico [1976]
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
Coleman Dowell — Island People [1976]
Eugene H. Hayworth
Raymond Federman — Take It or Leave It [1976]No - the one I have is 'Two Fold Vibration]
Steve Katz
Italo Calvino — If on a winter’s night a traveller [1979] [Started it once, having read about 6 of his other books]

Richard said...

Silvia Barlaam [No]
Gilbert Sorrentino — Mulligan Stew [1979] [Some of his poems]
M.J. Nicholls [No]
Roald Dahl — The Twits [1980] [Read other things by him]
Harold Lad [No]
Donald Barthelme — Sixty Stories [1981] [Yes!!]
Lee Klein
Alexander Theroux — Darconville’s Cat [1981]
Steven Moore [None of that group]
Camilo José Cela — Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son [1982] [No - but I have 2 others by him]
Rosalyn Drexler
D. Keith Mano — Take Five [1982]
Nathan Gaddis
Thomas Bernhard — Woodcutters [1984]
Anonymous
Christine Brooke-Rose — Amalgamemnon [1984]
Ellen G. Friedman
Rikki Ducornet — The Stain [1984]
Michelle Ryan-Sautour
Christoph Meckel — The Figure on the Boundary Line [1984]
Ben Winch [None of these]
Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Male Edition) [1984] [Have, but unread]
Alec Nevala-Lee
Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Female Edition) [1984] [Op cit]
Silvia Barlaam [No]
Don Delillo — White Noise [1985] [Yes. Good.]
Barbara Melville [No]
Gilbert Sorrentino — Pack of Lies [Op cit] Trilogy [1985-1989]
Dick Witherspoon
Ronald Sukenick — In Form: Digressions on the Act of Fiction [1985]
Tom Willard
Marcel Bénabou — Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books [1986]
A. Writer
Michael Westlake — Imaginary Women [1987]
Michael Westlake
Nicholson Baker — The Mezzanine [1988]
M.J. Nicholls [None of those]
Italo Calvino — Six Memos for the Next Millennium [1988] [Op cit, not this one]
Daniel Levin Becker
David Markson — Wittgenstein’s Mistress [1988]
Christopher WunderLee
Janice Galloway — The Trick is to Keep Breathing [1989]
Gillian Devine
Jacques Roubaud — The Great Fire of London [1989]
Ian Monk
Felipe Alfau — Chromos [1990]
Sam Moss
Robert Alan Jamieson — A Day at the Office [1991]
Rodge Glass
Alasdair Gray — Poor Things [1992] [Started a book by him not this though]
Rodge Glass
W.G. Sebald — The Emigrants [1992] [Yes! Keen on Sebald]
Peter Bebergal
William Gaddis — A Frolic of His Own [1994][Possess but unread]

Richard said...

Christopher WunderLee
Jáchym Topol — City Sister Silver [1994]
Alex Zucker [None of these]
Martin Amis — The Information [1995] [Unread but I have a copy]
Anthony Vacca
William H. Gass — The Tunnel [1995]
H.L. Hix [None of these, only part of a critical book by Gass]
Gilbert Sorrentino — Red the Fiend [1995] [Op cit]
Jenny Offill
Roberto Bolaño — Nazi Literature in the Americas [1996]
Adrian Carney [None of]
Geoff Dyer — Out of Sheer Rage [1997] [No but I love his critical writings]
Kathleen Heil
Alasdair Brotchie & Harry Mathews (eds.) — Oulipo Compendium [1998]
Jason Graff
Dubravka Ugrešić — The Museum of Unconditional Surrender [1998]
Jasmina Lukić
Percival Everett — Glyph [1999]
Tom Conoboy [None of]
Ali Smith — Other Stories and Other Stories [1999] [Read a meditative book on lit by her, it was good but not this book]
M.J. Nicholls
Ignácio de Loloya Brandão — Anonymous Celebrity [2002]
Ricki Aklon
Curtis White — Requiem [2002]
Trevor Dodge
Lucy Ellmann — Dot in the Universe [2003]
Ali Millar
Dubravka Ugrešić — Thank You for Not Reading [2003]
Ana Stanojevic
Roberto Bolaño — 2666 [2004]
Alex Cox
Meredith Brosnan — Mr. Dynamite [2004]
Jarleth L. Prendergast [None of those]
David Mitchell — Cloud Atlas [2004][Have - unread]
Stephen Mirabito
Steve Katz — Antonello’s Lion [2005]
W.C. Bamberger
Graham Rawle — Woman’s World [2005]
Michael Leong
Gilbert Adair — The Evadne Mount Trilogy [2006-2009]
Manny Rayner
Nicola Barker — Darkmans [2007]
Kinga Burger [None of these]
Lydia Davis — Varieties of Disturbance [2007] [Not this but I have her collected stories found by chance in a library]
Ali Millar
Lydie Salvayre — Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal [2007] [None of these]
Juliet Jacques
Adam Thirwell — Miss Herbert [2007]
Jack Ross [Possess unread as discussed]
Urmuz — Collected Works [2007]
Eddie Watkins
Marilyn Chin — Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen [2009]
Melanie Ho
Gabriel Josipovici — Only Joking [2010] [Have only read parts of a critical book he wrote]
Gianni Dane
Steven Moore — The Novel: An Alternative History [2010-2013]
Nathan Gaddis
Will Self — Walking to Hollywood [2010]
Richard Strachan
Charles Newman — In Partial Disgrace [2013]
Eric Lundgren
The Influences of Others
Igo Wodan [None of these]

Richard said...

I like book lists though. I know it's silly but I love them, the sense of 'getting thru'...But recently I read a book about what and how to read in the age of anxiety and the internet etc and the (he was an academic and well read) had himself been unable to read as he had when he was younger. (With that total rapt attention.)He advised to avoid lists, and to read by whim. But he went for a kind of 'educated' or informed Whim. He admitted his own longing to read all those books but, paradoxically, in his case, it was using e books that got him reading as for some reason he was thus less distracted. But he wanted the readers he was addressing to read slowly and take notes, as well as to re-read books. Both for the sheer joy of it. He warned against reading for 'edification' etc
This all came just in time for Ken's book as I slowed down, read it twice, and took notes. I now write more (pencil) notes on books. I have also read aloud a lot, if not the whole book, part of it. And by reading slowly I find I get more from a book although I read Brian Moore's 'The Robe' and that was a great read...

But if you want strange and Kingdom of Alt, get load of this: 'The Song of the Earth' by Nissenson. [See if those Verbiroscity People know of it, they may not] I pulled it for my collection. As you and Benjamin say about wine, well, one keeps things unread. Or as Richard Ford 'comments' through his (I think great) book 'The Sportswriter' [which Geoff Dyer likes] there is no need to know everything - about the world, literature, one's wife or girlfriend or partner, or anything. It is the drive to know, the striving, and the sheer enjoyment of reading. If it is a chore, chuck it all out. The same applies to writing. No need to worry about it, if you make it you make it, if not, well, that's the way it is. Have as good a life as you can.

I think that Roger exaggerates this 'how horrible the suburbs are' thing. I like him, he was my lecturer, but there is a danger of becoming too ivory tower, so, I like living in the suburbs. I've lived in them all my life and I love them. I am the Kingdom of Alt if I want to be.

In fact I am going to his book launch, ceteris paribus, tommorrow...