I fell a bit short of my goal of reading 100 books in the past year (yes, I start my years in November -- so radical, I know), still, 72 books isn't bad for working more than 40 hours a week, and I'm not even counting 25 or so chapbooks of less than 20 pages. I wanted to write a mini-review for each book, which, sadly, is far from a novel idea. So I'm ratcheting it up a notch by writing each review as a quincouplet, which is basically a five-word poem with two words in the first line and three in the second. The form was originated by Benjamin Krause of twenty20 Publications and Diamond Point Press, in whose forthcoming quincouplet anthology I'm happy to have a few of my pieces appear. So yeah, five words per book, except for the ones I've already reviewed, because I've spent enough time thinking about them.
“The Blue Tower” by Tomaž Šalamun: Slovenia’s genius / happy nihilist trees
"A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat” by Arthur Rimbaud: l’enfante retourne / ma tête brûle
"Gardens of Earthly Delight" by George Williams: review forthcoming / sometime next month
"In Lieu of Hartshorn" by Travis Brown: Greying ghost / makes nice things
"Sex at Noon Taxes" by Sally Van Doren: language games / can get naughty
"Nemesis" by Philip Roth: grandpa’s ramblings / still, polio sucks
“Illuminations" by Arthur Rimbaud: l’enfant terrible / c’est mon favori
"A Shiny, Unused Heart" by J.A. Tyler: review forthcoming / The Brooklyn Rail
"In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan: don’t, tigers / eat less parents
"Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World" by Donald Antrim: coral do-gooders / delusions from fish
"Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" by Nick Flynn: best memoir / I’ve ever read
“Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin: historically trite / well-formed but sleepy
"Emotionless Souls" by David S. Grant: how come / this is published?
"Rushing to Paradise" by J.G. Ballard: bored Polynesians / make nice bombs
"The Trial" by Franz Kafka: this feels / like contemporary non-fiction
"The Laurel Poetry Series: Byron": this dude / got some ass
"The Body Artist" by Don DeLillo: ethereal freak / not much happens
"Wild Animus" by Rich Shapero: self-published drivel / could use editing
"Martini: A Memoir" by Frank Moorhouse: drink, drink, / drink, drink martinis!
"The Iguana Complex" by Darby Larson: dreamy mindfuck / felines elicit resentment
"The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker: epic perversion / but no boner
"Micro-Fiction" edited by Jerome Stern: short flash / some really flashy
"Story of My Life" by Jay McInerney: cocaine schoolgirls / always a hell
“Killing Yourself to Live" by Chuck Klosterman: tragic roadtrip / culture-subverting truth monkeys
"Trust" by Liz Waldner: these poems / make me scrunch
"Burning Girl" by Ben Neihart: Baltimore love-thing / stranger than anticipated
"Drinking Until Morning" by Justin Grimbol: dude drinks / weird things happen
"The Illustrator" by James Robison: bohemian pederast / gets more bohemian
"The Rainbow" by D.H. Lawrence: modernist porn / Lawrence’s a boss
"Bright-Sided" by Barbara Ehrenreich: thinking positive: / pretty darn stupid
"Train Wreck Girl" by Sean Carswell: girlfriend dies / future looks brighter
"I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill The Clone and Eat It" by Sam Pink: bottled rage / seldom this insightful
"Out Of Touch" by Brandon Tietz: Emprise Review, / where’s my review???
"Ham On Rye" by Charles Bukowski: your childhood / wasn’t this bad
"Things Are Happening" by Joshua Beckman: I love / all your words
"Affluenza" by David LaBounty: weird neighbors / are probably mass-murderers
"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett: men once / were hardboiled badasses
"How Can I Help?" by Ram Dass: Hindu gurus / make nice houseguests
"Vox" by Nicholson Baker: phone-sex paradise / no plot necessary
"The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford: post-WWI masterpiece / Englishmen were sneaky
"Go" by John Clellan Holmes: Beat precursor / better as concept
"Factotum" by Charles Bukowski: odd-job perils / booze away dogma
"You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense" by Charles Bukowski: how sparrows / like drowning happily
"The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster" by Richard Brautigan: hippie’s lament / time to grow
"Bring Me Your Love" by Charles Bukowski: Crumb cartoons / make Chinaski monstrous
"Generation A" by Douglas Coupland: bees gone / Shytengart’s future’s worse
"South of No North" by Charles Bukowski: early drunk / before real decay
"Waiting For Godot" by Samuel Beckett: god laughs / at bumbling Frenchmen
"The Essential Numbers 1991 - 2008" by Gordon Massman: insanity is / the fucking shit
"Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Shteyngart: near-future ache / China should frighten
"Good, Brother" by Peter Markus: mud people / fish solicit violence
"My Father's Tears and Other Stories" by John Updike: Rabbit runs / out of time
"Without Wax" by William Walsh: 18-inch lovemeat / even sadder anomalies
“Rabbit, Run” by John Updike: this guy’s / a real jerkoff
“Fragments of Sappho” by Anne Carson: lesbian poets / write radical verse
“How It Ended ” by Jay McInerney: I wish / I’d written these
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