Hey, nose! Meet grindstone.

Not an actual grindstone

I am still in the thick of this nonfiction project I've been working on all summer. It's starting to look like it wants to be a lot longer than I imagined at the beginning. I've been kind of stuck lately, because writing about real people brings all of these ethical issues into play, and it just makes me want to stop writing and start watching television or playing video games or developing some kind of hobby that doesn't involve pressuring myself to create something that kicks ass. But let's not kid ourselves. I love the pressure.

And now I have all of these ideas for other, new, shiny projects just flooding in, and I haven't been letting myself work on anything else all summer. Maybe this is a mistake. Sometimes it's right to really focus on one thing until it's finished, but when I have multiple projects it often seems like they end up feeding one another, and they all end up better than they would have without the others. So I think it's time to try branching out for just a little while, to let myself get some perspective.

The summer reading is going well. I've been taking advantage of the public library, and I have a great pile of books on my mantle (yes, I really have a mantle). I stumbled across this fantastic little collection of Soviet short stories, and it has some gems. When I'm done, I'll post a review up here.

Summer Reading and Quickie Reviews

Round One - Done and Done

Bolaño, Roberto. Monsieur Pain - Didn't rock my world like Bolaño usually does. But a fun read, with good surprises.

Perec, Georges. A Void - A novel written in French without the letter E, translated to English without the letter E. Recommended only if the idea of a novel without Es really excites you. I was all wound up about the idea of it, but found the book tedious after the first few chapters. Still, the E-less re-working of Poe's "The Raven" made it all worthwhile.

Richards, D. J. Zamyatin; A Soviet heretic - This was a mistake. I meant to get the book called A Soviet Heretic by Zamyatin. This was a slim little book about Zamyatin - very meh.

Hrabal, Bohumil. Closely Watched Trains - Good. Love me some Hrabal. Now I need to track down the film.

Larsson, Stieg. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Because a girl's gotta read something on the airplane.

Markson, David. The Last Novel - Still thinking this one over.



Round Two - Aaaand GO!

Nabokov, Vladimir. The Original of Laura

McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. A Soviet Heretic

Various. Soviet Short Stories

And I'm still waiting for a haiku collection.