A couple of years ago I struggled through Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. Well, when I say struggled, I mean that it took me three months and that I didn’t enjoy the experience. And when I say that I didn’t enjoy the experience, I mean that in the end I fucking hated the fucking book. Since [...]
Category Archives: 40 books before 40
First Lines: Lolita
May 3, 2010 – 22:53
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita has been called sheer unrestrained pornography, the filthiest book I have ever read, perverse, repulsive, obscene and indecent. It has been banned in France, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Argentina. If you go with what I suspect is the common preconceived notion—i.e., that book about this older guy with his unhealthy [...]
#50: 40 Books Before 40
April 14, 2010 – 18:00
This post in three months overdue. My original plan was to finalize my list of 40 books to read before my 40th birthday on my 30th birthday, so that I would have exactly ten years to complete them. But then life happened. Anyway, the list. (Those books I’ve read are bold.) J.M. Barrie – Peter [...]
First Lines: Der Prozess
March 8, 2010 – 22:20
Josef K.’s trail started on the morning of his 30th birthday, when two officials came to arrest him. The trail ended on the eve of his 31st birthday, when two officials came to take him away for execution. In between, a mind boggling and incomprehensible trail—or process, if you will—takes place. It’s a shadowy business, [...]
