Books I Read August 7th 2023

Howdy. Spent the last week sitting on beaches and reading books and thinking about other times I sat on beaches, reading books.

Guston in Time by Ross Feld – A short essay detailing the author's friendship with the eponymous neo-expressionist painter. Art criticism is pretty far outside my balliwick which is probably why I tend to enjoy reading it.

The Liar by Martin A. Hansen – A schoolmaster on a small Danish island intrudes in the lives of the inhabitants. Spare, slim, sad, pleasant.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby – The South's best get away driver takes on one last job, struggles with the curse of generational violence. Good stuff. It moves quick, the language is sharp and action punchy but still carries some kind of real human weight. I picked another one up by him right after so that's praise.

Old Calabria by Norman Douglas – A ruminative travelogue of a largely forgotten piece of post-unification Southern Italy. Douglas seems mostly famous these days as a pederast (which is quite an accomplishment, given the competition from other 20th century English writers) but this is fun all the same, interesting if not always coherent takes on the Italian history and culture.

Heat of Fusion and Other Stories by John M. Ford – There's a lot of poetry in here that brought the average down.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – An ex-cop investigates the murder of a shady preacher in a small southern town.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand – A sometime photographer and current casualty of the NYC punk rock scene becomes embroiled in a mystery on a secluded Maine island. The voice is strong and the plot moves quickly.