12/16/09

Farked, Metafiltered, Digged



Yesterday my account of The Velvet Underground's "reunion" at the New York Library went up on The Rumpus. The piece got picked up at a few places around the internet, including Metafilter, Fark and Digg. I feel like Paul Wall here!

“The building has hit fire code,” the security guard told me. “500 people.” Some of the people outside were holding tickets. I asked the guard if I could use the bathroom out in the hall. He sighed, shrugged and said, “I’ll remember you.” I decided not to risk it.

--

Also, two days ago I had a (very short) story go up at Opium magazine. It is called Consequences:

I once knew a girl who’d been smothered with a pillow by her lover. It was the same old story, jealousy of this or another. He didn’t get far and she lived, but she became afraid of anything soft.

12/11/09

ctrl + f "Lincoln Michel"


The Oxford American's 11th annual music issue is out now and this week they put up Q&As with all of the contributors online. If you click here and do a ctrl + f for "Lincoln Michel" you can read me discussing Iggy Pop, Bernhard's The Loser, why U2 is boring and other music-related things. Or you can just scroll way down. Or not click. Hey, I give up. Do what you wanna do.

12/9/09

Oxford American Southern Music Issue

Oh yes, it is that time of year!

For those not in the loop, every year The Oxford American compiles a few CDs of amazing tunes from across the spectrum of Southern music. Soul, country, bluegrass, rap, pop...it is all here, likely by artists you have never heard of before. Each track gets an essay (or two or three) to accompany it in the magazine and this year I'm lucky enough to have a piece of mine included. I'm pretty excited to be a part of this because an OA Southern Music issue is always some seriously massive stuff. This year features two CDs, one devoted entirely to Arkansas musicians.

The Oxford American also published a short story of mine earlier this year.

It's like Santa came early this year and he had a flask of bourbon in his hand and a twang in his voice.

12/7/09

Big Bling


New York City (and surrounding area) friends, three magazines that I am involved withGigantic (co-editor), The Faster Times (books editor) and The Rumpus (sometime contributor)are joining forces to throw a near-year-end holiday party on Monday, December 14th.

Should be a pretend-fancy good time.

Three Jokes the Homeless Man Told on My Morning Commute

Q: What did the breakfast say to the lunch?

A: Eat me.


Q: What did the SWAT team say to the young man?

A: Get a haircut!


Q: What do you call the stars in Hollywood?

A: The Big Dipper.

11/25/09

Recent things at The Faster Times


Sorry for the lack of updates. Lots of projects in the works. Some fiction coming out, some non-fiction coming out, some reading series being worked on, some issue 2 of Gigantic (featuring Robert Coover, Sam Lipsyte, Lydia Millet, Adrian Tomine, Clancy Martin and many more...it will be massive, titanic, giant, even gigantic) being finished up, and so on. In the meantime, here are some recent posts of mine at The Faster Times:

The 100 Best Books of the 2000s (At Least According to The Times)

Philip Roth’s Bad Sex Writing Gives Him Hope for a 2009 Literary Prize

A Novelty Deckchair of One’s Own

Balls-Out Badassery: TFT Review of Prison Pit Book One by Johnny Ryan

Will the Real Roberto Bolaño Please Stand Up?

10/9/09

Reading at NYPL next week


I'll be reading at the NYPL next Tuesday for CLMP's Periodically Speaking series (the same series where Adam Wilson read for Gigantic earlier this year). Three magazines pick three emerging writers to read for a short amount of time each. Here is the line-up:

Lincoln Michel reading fiction on behalf of Vestal Review
Leigh Stein reading poetry on behalf of Low Rent
Montana Wojczuk reading non-fiction on behalf of Tin House

I'm very excited to be picked by Vestal Review and to share the room with the fine journals and writers above. Stop by if you'd like, I will try not to be boring.

Tuesday, October 13th, 6 – 7:30 pm
DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, The New York Public Library,
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
(Please use Fifth Avenue entrance; admittance is free)

--

My piece on hamburger restaurants is out in The Believer. I just saw it for the first time yesterday and it looks fantastic (thanks to the layout genius of Alvaro Villanueva). It is a schema, so you can only see it in print, but I have a Lincoln Michel bio online I can link to.

All for now.

10/1/09

Hamburgers in The Believer

The October Believer is out and, as always, has lots of interesting stuff (Agnès Varda interviewed, Vlad the Impaler's impact on tourism examined, Louis C.K. doing sedaratives, a poem by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, etc.). The issue also has my piece on the habitats of regional hamburger restaurants. It is not online, so you'll have to read the issue to see what that means. I'm extremely excited to be in a magazine as consistently rad as The Believer!

--

In The Faster Times news, we recently partnered with The Onion AV club and in the books section I wrote a perhaps funny piece on classic lit / monster mash-ups and learned that Dan Brown and David Foster Wallace were in a workshop together. Zak Smith was interviewed by Justin Taylor and Gary Lutz was interviewed by Michael Kimball. Clancy Martin, who I interviewed for Gigantic, has been discussing loving and lying. Many other cool things, but I think I already overloaded this paragraph with links.

9/22/09

Gigantic interview with Clancy Martin


Over at the newly designed Gigantic magazine website, I have an interview up with philosopher and novelist Clancy Martin whose novel How to Sell I reviewed for Bookforum earlier this year. We we talk about talk about philosophy versus fiction, Apollo versus Dionysus, Thomas Pynchon versus Denis Johnson, minimalism versus lyricism, and one or two other things. Read it here: TALKING ABOUT THINKING: a fairly long interview with Clancy Martin by Lincoln Michel.

CM: I think if you are a writer and you want to immediately grab hold of your reader's repressed consciousness, of her or his own terror and despair of suffering and the meaninglessness of life and the consciousness of their own failure and the inevitability of death, all you have to do: Yellow. Just bring in yellow and you've got it just like that.

9/13/09

It's a live (website)!

The official Gigantic site is now live! Infinite thanks to the crazy talented Joanna Neborsky for designing it and making it happen and also to Daniel Carvalho for programming it.

Check out our art feature by Thomas Doyle, the new Forecast chapter from Shya Scanlon and a new story by J.A. Tyler.

We are excited and hope you are too.

8/28/09

one or two things about one or two things

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Gigantic /Opium /BOMB end of summer bash. We had a great time, so we hope you did as well! If you missed it, read a recap at The New York Observer.

--

The Faster Times is still young but going very strong. Some recent highlights from the book section (that I edit) in case you missed:


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I've have a few other rad things in the works that I will tell you about at some future point. Wow, this is a boring way to end a post isn't it?

8/18/09

You Don't Know Me

but... you could if you come to this party:


Gigantic magazine, BOMB magazine and Opium magazine are co-throwing an end of the summer bash. A Gigantic Opium Bomb, if you will. Boozing, schmoozing, DJs, special guests, short plays directed by novelists. What more could you want? You can buy tickets online here.
Bowery Electric, August 26th.

7/13/09

it is indeed alive



The Faster Times
went live a few days ago and is looking pretty rad. I'm editing the Faster Times Books section and writing the Faster Times Fiction section. I'd recommend Clancy Martin's essay on how grown-ups love and The Faster Times interview with John Wray (conducted by James Yeh). Check it out, link us, write angry comments, etc.

7/9/09

two new for you to peruse



- I have a short-short story up today on The L Magazine's new online fiction component. You can read it here: My Initiation by Lincoln Michel. Lot of other neat people up as well, including the great and hilarious Ed Park.

- Also, recently I had a short play up on my friend Terry Selucky's blog. She has been collecting six-line plays and I'm excited to have my contribution up alongside other great writers and artists like James J. Williams III. A cool project all around, check them all out.

6/19/09

a series of tubes



The Oxford American has unveiled its new website. It looks to feature a lot of new and old content (my story isn't online, only in print so far) such as Kevin Brockmeier's 50 favorite stories and Lyn Miller on whether the environment is croaking.

In other web news, The Faster Times is getting ready to launch. Check out the video teaser:



Lastly, Opium issue 8 was written up in WIRED.

6/2/09

Lincoln Michel in Bookforum and The Oxford American

Please excuse my Bob Dole-isms in this post. I am experimenting with Google rankings.



I had two things come out in the past two days. First, a review of Clancy Martin's How to Sell in Bookforum. I've been a big fan of Martin's work for a while (he appears frequently in NOON) so was excited to read his debut novel and even more excited to review it for Bookforum: Lincoln Michel's review of How to Sell



Secondly, I just saw the cover for The Oxford American's Best of the South 2009 issue. Looks fantastic and also includes a note about HOT SUMMER FICTION by George Singleton, Rebecca T. Godwin & Lincoln Michel.

Full articles should apparently be going online in a few days, so I will link my story if/when it appears.

6/1/09

A little piece at The Rumpus



I have a piece on the PBS documentary Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story over at The Rumpus. The documentary is only an hour long and viewable on Hulu.com. I recommend it, but I guess just click on link to see what I thought.

Spend some time clicking around The Rumpus if you haven't already. Lots of great content including a lot of pieces by Rozalia Jovanovic. There is also a great series called "The Last Book I Loved." Here is my entry on Donald Antrim.

5/28/09

I'm in Opium 8 (sorta)



I just got my copy of Opium 8 and it looks fantastic. Hard to tell from the above pic, but the cover design/concept is brilliant (read about it here). I also found, to my surprise, that a piece of simple yet accurate writing advice that Neil Gaiman once gave me was included in Opium's "Network of Writers Experiment," a collection of advice passed from writers to writers. There is also a picture of me on the back alongside Sam Lipsyte, Diane Williams, Ben Greenman, Stephen Elliot and a whole host of other people who have read or judged at Opium events.

Okay, those are just some random things, but the actual content of the issue looks great as does the design. Check it out.

5/26/09

elimae marathon



A late reminder for the elimae reading tonight at KGB Bar. It includes me, Lincoln Michel, two of my Gigantic magazine co-editors (Rozalia Jovanovic and James Yeh), many writing friends (Justin Taylor, Tao Lin, Todd Zuniga, Dennis DiClaudio, Kimberly King Parsons and Sasha Grayboch) and believe it ore not several more people who will surely rock the house. Starts at 7pm.

(That was way too many links...)

5/21/09

Raise those swords


Over at htmlgiant, someone with the Hannahesque name of Michael Bible posts some of Barry Hannah's rules for writing.

This is spot on:

2. When you tell a story think more in terms of yarn, tale, even whopper. Then tell it subtly. DON’T think of nuance or “interior decoration.”

--

Speaking of Barry Hannah, he sometimes publishes in The Oxford American, a great magazine whose next issue is at the press as we speak. Oh, and it has a story of mine in it.

--

I wrote a short bit on Donald Antrim over at The Rumpus a few days ago.

--

Also, in case you missed it, Gigantic magazine has two excerpts from our print issue up online. Three shorts by Shane Jones and the Gigantic interview with Gary Shteyngart.

5/1/09

'09 reading, the first 1/3


Continuing my first successful New Year's Eve resolution of last year, to finish at least 50 books, I'm doing the same this year. The only rule is the book has to finished in this year, meaning half-read books from last year can be finished now and half-read books from this year will be finished next year, and on and on to infinity. Books finished so far (in order):

  1. The Tormented Mirror – Russell Edson
  2. The True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
  3. The Men Who Stare at Goats – Jon Ronson
  4. Flying to America – Donald Barthelme
  5. How to Sell – Clancy Martin
  6. Retreat Retreat Chapbook – Wells Tower
  7. The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven – Rick Moody
  8. Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee – James Tate
  9. Farewell Navigator – Leni Zumas
  10. Like You’d Understand Anyway – Jim Shepard
  11. Funny Misshapen Body – Jeffery Brown
  12. NOON 2009
  13. Days Between Stations – Steven Erickson
  14. Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson
  15. Hey Jack! – Barry Hannah
  16. Personal Days – Ed Park
  17. Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World - Donald Antrim
A pretty good run with no real clunkers. Here are the books I rated five stars on Goodreads:

The True History of the Kelly Gang
How to Sell
(I predict this will be the hip book of the summer.)
Like You’d Understand Anyway (H.S. football story was badass.)
NOON 2009
Days Between Stations (An eye-patched man in a blue trench coat who owns an LA club called the Blue Isosceles? How is that not a David Lynch character? But this book came out before even Blue Velvet. Hmm...)
Autobiography of Red (Just fantastic.)
Hey Jack!
Personal Days (I think my current work situation helped.)
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World (This book might have the sickest, in both senses of the word, ending I've ever read.)

Yep.

4/28/09

a big, large, over-sized thank you


photo by Jerome
--

A thank you to everyone who came out to the Gigantic magazine launch party. I think several hundred of you did and it really meant a lot to us. Hopefully you had at least a little fun. Also thanks of course to Starr Space, Adron, The Five Cents, King Vitamin and our various lovely readers.

--

Also on the Gigantic front, we have unveiled our official website's proto-site. Which is to say, we have a lovely sample site created by Joanna Neborsky that features three very short stories and one long interview from print issue #1: Gigantic magazine official website.

--

In other news, I'm taking part in an elimae reading later this month. KGB Bar, May 26th, 7pm. Also featuring many good friends (and good writers) such as Justin Taylor, James Yeh, Rozi Jovanovic, Tao Lin, Kimberly King Parsons, Todd Zuniga and Dennis DiClaudio.

4/15/09

April elimae

New elimae is up and as usual contains a lot of fantastic work. Also one short poem from me: will we ever be forgiven.

Two previous elimae poems can be found here.

That's all.

4/12/09

thunked


I have been interviewed by Ryan Manning over at his thunk blog. Check it out here: Ryan Manning vs. Lincoln Michel

you have three wishes. what are they?

Unending vitality, unending creativity and unending love and affection from everyone in the whole world including strangers, birds, beasts and fish...but not bugs.

4/11/09

retarded in real life, on the mic rain man

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Thanks to everyone who came out to Gigantic's Opium Live interview. It was a fun time and hearing John Wray and Terry Selucky be interviewed was great. Also thanks to Lee Bob Black for taking some pictures, such as the above. Gigantic has a bit of a response to a question we feel we didn't adequately answer when the four of us were wrestling over the mic. Read it here.

--

Also please save the date for the Gigantic magazine launch party and benefit! April 25th in Bushwick. This is going to be an awesome event with live music, DJing, cheep booze and free books and CDs appropriated from places that we work. Maybe a knife throwing competition too, who knows? Also short readings from the likes of Adam Wilson, Justin Taylor, Todd Zuniga, Lauren Soprher and many more. Feel free to download the flier and paste it around. It will be massive.

4/8/09

Oh, to be home again down in old Virginny


I'm very excited to say that I have a short story coming out in the next issue of the Oxford American. Oxford American is a fantastic magazine of fiction, journalism and writing of all kind about the south. Many of my favorite writers new and old, from Barry Hannah and Richard Ford to William Gay and Wells Tower, have graced the pages. So yeah, very excited.

More info as it comes...

4/6/09

Fletcher Fisch, Doppleganger

Apparently some gentleman with the improbable name of Fletcher Fisch has been dressing up like me (latex mask?) and attending downtown literary brough-ha-has. If anyone can put me in contact with him, please get in touch! He could be useful in an upcoming high-society jewel heist I may or may not be involved with.

--

I will be interviewed tomorrow by Todd Zunia for Opium Live alongside my Gigantic co-editors, playwright Terry Selucky and novelist John Wray. Come out to Happy Ending bar around 7:55 if you can.

--

Gigantic
launch party is confirmed for Starr Space in Bushwick, April 25th. Save the date!

3/15/09

still bummed about Laika



I have a piece forthcoming in Dogs: Wet & Dry, an anthology of canine flash fiction. Includes a foreword by Rick Bass and stories from the likes of Deb Olin Unferth, Ravi Mangla and Robert Boswell. Looks like it will be a rad collection!

More info as it appears....

3/5/09

Big things poppin


Okay, let's get some Gigantic magazine stuff out of the way first. Things are really snowballing and we will have a lot of exciting new stuff to unveil in the near future. Since the only way to reach the damn-kids-these-days these days is newfangled social networking sites, we'd love to have you follow our Gigantic magazine twitter and join our Gigantic magazine MySpace or our Gigantic facebook page.

We also completed our three part teaser series with bits from our interviews/dialogues with Malcolm Gladwell, Joe Wenderoth, Deb Olin Unferth, Tao Lin and Gary Shteyngart. Gigantic fiction preview and art previews are still up as well.

--

In other news, I'm really digging this blog J. Cruel that Michelle Legro has started. Some great sartorial advice on there.

When budgets are stretched thin, we think it is especially important to pay attention to quality. Consider the longevity of the item you are purchasing, how much you really need it, how pretty it will look pinned onto your bathrobe, what you might name it (perhaps Madam Shiny), its clarity, its color, and the usefulness of any curse purported to have been attached to it. Obviously, then, diamonds are what you should be buying. Go on. Indulge. You deserve a little pick-me-up, especially one that will last forever.

Diamonds: hard, just like the times.


--

NOON magazine
will be having its annual launch party on April 17th. Mercantile Library. Great readings will be given by Rebecca Curtis, Clancy Martin and Christine Schutt. Be there!

--

Finally, I liked today's Maakies comic.

3/1/09

whoops

The links got a bit messed up in that last post and it looks kinda ugly so instead here is a video of a fish with a transparent head:


2/26/09

I have an amazing number of tabs open right now

- You know what? The Onion is still really funny after all these years.
Some good new stuff:

CIA Awkwardly Debriefs Obama On Creation Of Crack Cocaine


New Kindle infographic

"Like/As" button converts all cumbersome metaphors into easy-to-read similes

New Mike Tyson Documentary Features Exclusive Interviews With Super Macho Man, King Hippo

"Tyson was the best," said Mario, the referee who officiated every WVBA boxing match ever. "Most challengers couldn't even land a punch on him. They'd be knocked to the ground by a single blow, TKO'd within the first round, and forced to travel back to Hollywood to fight Super Macho Man again to qualify."
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

----

What else?

- Oh, Achewood is still good as well.

- Gigantic magazine preview post #2 is up.

- Todd Zuniga wants to hear the brilliant writing advice you've been told.


2/23/09

Thump



Okay, more Gigantic magazine news:

- Gigantic has been invited to join LitCrawl 2009 (I read at LitCrawl 2008 and it was a great time). So stay tuned for that.

- Over the next week or so Gigantic will be rolling out its issue #1 preview posts. Part 1/3, random sentences from Gigantic prose contributors, is up today.

- There is also a Gigantic magazine twitter that we just started if you want to follow around.

Sorry for so much Gigantic news, but it is occupying a gigantic amount of my time right now...

2/19/09

Large things arriving


- The new issue of elimae is out and features work from Gigantic magazine co-editor Rozalia Jovanovic: where to be taken.

- In other Gigantic news, things are heating up with the magazine. We've been getting some unsolicited press as well as some final great solicited work, including Tao Lin interviewing Malcolm Gladwell.

- Have you checked out Stephen Elliot's new website, The Rumpus.net? It looks pretty rad.

- Also, Todd Zuniga's cartoons.


1/23/09

GIGANTIC



Gigantic, a magazine of prose and art, is getting ready for its debut. In the meantime, check out our collected fragments (volume I)

1/18/09

Thing-a-ding-dings

- The Morning News's Tournament of the Books is starting back up again. This year features heavyweights such as Bolano and Marilyn Robinson plus new faces like Mark Sarvas and Keith Lee Morris. Should be good.

- New Super-Fun-Pak Comics.

- New issue of Elimae is out and has a very short story by James Yeh.
(p.s. two poems of mine in the previous elimae issue.)

- Some rad photographs by Jean-Yves Lemoigne.

1/8/09

Odds and ends

- The Millions compiles a nice list of upcoming books. Old favorites like Vollman, Pynchon, Roth, Smith and Lethem plus newcomers like Clancy Martin and Wells Tower? 2k9 seems to be shaping up pretty nicely.

- The Onion gives us the scoop on the hot new Macbook Wheel.

- HTMLGIANT unearths a David Foster Wallace syllabus.

- Finally, in clever viral marketing news: if you de-friend 10 people on facebook, Burger King will give you a free whopper.

1/7/09

Fresh from the oven

I have a new piece up at Yankee Pot Roast today: Now That Ridley Scott Is Attached to Adapt the Board Game Monopoly, Other Directors Follow Suit

It is hilariously illustrated by Josh Abraham (who hopefully doesn't mind me hotlinking a sample):

Wes Anderson’s Operation staring Bill Murray as Cavity Sam.



If you don't get the title of the piece, check out this article.


Two previous bits of mine at YPR:
1.Suggested Emcee Names for People with Disorders Which Might Make It Difficult to Actually Rap
2. One-Line Listicles

1/1/09

Boring personal reading habits 2k8 summary edition




Unlike James, I'm not going to review every book I finished in 2008. Face it, you weren't going to read all that anyway. As explained here, I made a New Year's resolution to finish 50 books in 2008. I say finish because I counted any book I started in another year but finished now (such as Infinite Jest, which I started way back in 2005 I think) and excluded any book I started this year but have not completed (The True History of the Kelly Gang, Yonder Stands Your Orphan, etc.)

Blah blah.

Okay, my final tally for 2008? duh duh duh duh.... 64 books.

The list (in chronological order):

* Books I've read before.

1) The Aspern Papers – Henry James
2) How the Water Feels to the Fishes – Dave Eggers
3) Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape – Sarah Manguso
4) The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
5) The Art of the Possible – Kenneth Koch
6) Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon*
7) American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
8) Erasure – Percival Everett
9) Chronicle of a Death Foretold – Marquez
10) Venus Drive – Sam Lipsyte
11) Minor Robberies – Deb Olin Unferth
12) A Fan’s Notes – Frederick Exley
13) Captain Maximus – Barry Hannah
14) The Angle of Yaw – Ben Lerner
15) The Voice at 3:00 AM – Charles Simic
16) All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
17) Chord of Light – Zbigniew Herbert
18) Stars of the New Curfew – Ben Okri
19) Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
20) Men and Cartoons – Jonathan Lethem
21) Ant Farm – Simon Rich
22) 60 Poems – Charles Simic
23) In Persuasion Nation – George Saunders
24) Paradise – Donald Barthelme
25) Partial List of People to Bleach – Gary Lutz
26) McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #24
27) The Nimrod Flipout – Etgar Keret
28) The Elements of Style – Strunk and White*
29) The World Doesn’t End – Charles Simic*
30) I Killed Adolf Hitler – Jason
31) Rock Springs – Richard Ford
32) What I’d Say to the Martians – Jack Handey
33) The Wavering Knife – Brian Evenson
34) Ghost Town – Robert Coover
35) Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
36) Knightfall - Dixon et al*
37) i hate to see that evening sun go down – William Gay
38) Home Land – Sam Lipsyte
39) Ultramarine – Raymond Carver
40) The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
41) Flash Fiction Forward – ed. James Thomas & Robert Shapard
42) The Drowned River – Thomas Lux
43) Flash Fiction – ed. James Thomas et al
44) My Custom Van – Michael Ian Black
45) I Pass Like Knight – Jonathan Ames
46) Eternal Enemies – Adam Zagajewski
47) Der Struwwelmaakies – Tony Millionare
48) Emergence – Steven Johnson
49) The Dog of the Marriage – Amy Hempel
50) Coming Through Slaughter – Michael Ondaatje
51) Ray – Barry Hannah
52) Practice, Restraint – Laura Sims
53) CivilWarLand in Bad Decline – George Saunders
54) Novels in Three Lines – Felix Feneon
55) The Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolano
56) Best American Poetry 2008 – ed. Charles Wright
57) McSweeney’s #20
58) The Tunnel – Ernesto Sabato
59) The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
60) Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
61) No one belongs here more than you – Miranda July
62) A Murder of Quality – John Le Carre
63) Batman Year One – Frank Miller
64) Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolano

23 Story Collections
20 Novels
10 Poetry books
6 Comics/Graphic Novels
3 Humor books
2 Non-fiction books


5 anthologies
9 books in translation (excluding anthologies)


Authors read more than once? Barry Hannah, Roberto Bolano, Sam Lipsyte, Charles Simic and George Saunders.

Top 10 Favorites (no order):

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley
Rock Springs by Richard Ford
The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic
Ghost Town by Robert Coover
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
What I'd Say to the Martians by Jack Handey
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

11 Honorable mentions:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by G. G. Marquez
Minor Robberies by Deb Olin Unferth
Ray by Barry Hannah
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason
Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte
Stars of the New Curfew by Ben Okri
Ant Farm by Simon Rich
Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon
I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay
Eternal Enemies by Adam Zagajewski


Goodreads