... to recommend a book with which we had absolutely nothing to do and don't know a soul who did (a change for us):
Edward St. Aubyn's MOTHER'S MILK. I mention it because I've recommended it to five people in the last three days and no one I've asked has heard of it, much less read it. So I figure the suggestion is more useful than, say, a recommendation that you read Joan Didion's new book, which is at the top of the Times best-seller list and stacked in piles the size of small skyscrapers just inside the front door at Barnes & Noble.
Not that the Didion book isn't fantastic. It is. But no surprise there.
As part of my current day job ("novel finisher"), I've been on a massive satire/comic novel reading binge for the last few weeks, re-reading books I've already read and plowing through ones I haven't. I picked up St. Aubyn's book because I scanned it in the book store and on first impression, it reminded me of Waugh. There are definite similarities: dark dry wit, stories about plutocrats in decline, etc. And there's the pleasurably dark resolution in keeping with my literary preferences, which may be summarized thusly: happy endings are BULLSHIT.
Well, not always. I just don't particularly care for them.
Posted by espiers at December 5, 2005 07:51 AM