Books Wot I Read in 2018

This blog has been a bit of a graveyard lately. Most of it seems like a memorial to the years when I had a lot more time and energy to spend researching history’s weird, unloved, mutant orphans. I’m still hugely proud of articles like The Bonnie Cripple Club, Dodo à l’Orange, and Zombie Nero, but I just don’t go ferreting around in old newspapers the way I used to.

In 2018 I started keeping a log of all the books I’d read. The list is in its second year now, and it’s startling to look back at books I read only six months ago but have already completely forgotten, not because they’re not memorable but because they’ve got lost in amongst 33 years of reading material. My best friend Parker and I have done a movie night every week for the last three years, and god damn if I can remember what we watched last week let alone three years ago. Although I do remember the entire six-movie run of the original Leprechaun franchise is in there somewhere (spoiler alert: Leprechaun 4: In Space and Leprechaun in the Hood were the best ones; fight me).

I’d like to reinvigorate this blog (yes that’s right, I said blog, even though Parker tells me that is so 2008) by writing more about what I’ve been reading and watching. I am a writer, after all, I ought to have something fucking insightful to say. So I’ll kick us off with the 2018 reading list, to be followed very shortly by my 2019 list.

Books Wot I Read in 2018

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’engle

• The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir by Susan Daitch

  Can you believe it took until I was halfway through the book before I realized “Suolucidir” is “ridiculous” backwards? I am not a smart man.

• Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue

• Madness is Better Than Defeat by Ned Beauman

  God damn I love Beauman’s novels. This was an instant favorite of mine, and now that I’ve tragically read all his books I will have to console myself with the pleasure of reading them all again. They are so dense and layered that they not only deserve re-reading, they require it.

  This one is set in about 1938. A New York playboy is sent to South America to the site of a newly discovered Mayan temple with the mission of dismantling it and bringing it home. He gets halfway through taking it apart when a film crew shows up from Hollywood wanting to shoot a movie on location at the temple. One party wants to continue dismantling it, and the other wants to put it back together. They enter a stalemate. Cut to eight years later. It’s 1946 and an escaped Nazi war criminal is on the run in South America when he comes across the temple. Both parties of Americans are still there. And they have gone totally batshit fucking nuts. Good stuff.

• Their Brilliant Careers by Ryan O’Neill

  Trying not to gush too hard too soon (ooh er!), but this is another instant favorite — charming, witty, and so subversive it undermines the very medium it’s written in. This is a must for anyone who loves books, and doubly so for any Aussies. We really don’t see enough references to our own culture and history (such as it is). Anyone could be mistaken for believing we’re just Americans, only further away.

• Sferoj #4

• The Reproductive System by John T. Sladek

  Also hilariously titled Mechasm. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

• Shuteye by Sarah Becan

• Bad Rabbi by Eddy Portnoy

  A wonderfully intimate and funny insight into Jewish culture at the turn of the last century through the lens of Yiddish language newspapers. Keep an eye out for the morbidly obese Jewish wrestler who could execute an unexpectedly elegant splitz at the drop of a hat.

• How to Appear Normal at Social Events by Lord Birthday

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

• Amiko el la junaĝo de Maigret by Georges Simenon

• Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt

  Well worth tracking down a copy of this thoroughly weird and witchy story about motherhood and daughterhood.

• The Asylum of Dr. Caligari by James Morrow

• Living and Dying on the Internet by Alex Day

  I’m not going to weigh in on what Alex Day did or didn’t do, but this book is a fascinating account of how the Web changed between the mid-2000s and the mid-2010s from someone on the inside. It also provides a real insight into modern celebrity culture.

• In Between Dragons by Michael Kandel

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Glow by Ned Beauman

• How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky

• The Verificationist by Donald Antrim

  A guy gets bear-hugged at an all-night pancake restaurant and has an out-of-body experience for the ENTIRE novel. I love this author.

• The Last Green Tree by Jim Grimsley

  The last book in a trilogy that an ex of mine was very enthusiastic about. A disappointing end to a pointless, rapey story.

• Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

• The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman