Edited by author 05-19-2003 02:50 PM
"Tomcat in Love" by Tim O'Brien

With his Viet Nam epic "The Things They Carried," O'Brien has become required reading in high schools accross America, and let me say: I couldn't be happier. O'Brien is a profoundly sensitive story teller with a dirth of funny, sad, and above all /true/ things to say about America. Tomcat in Love is a a love story, a tragedy, a character study, but most of all, it's very, very funny.

"Vox" by Nicholson Baker

Baker is in possesion of a fantastically dirty mind which he uses to great advantage in this erotic novel. Like most of Baker's fiction, this book takes place in a very short period of time and is packed full of astute observations about casual human interaction. Unlike most of Baker's fiction, this book is comprised entirely of dialog. Definately fits the bill for light summer reading, but perhaps would be more appropraite stashed under a pillow as an entry in a matched set of guilty, slightly shameful pleasures.

"The Clown" by Heinrich Boll

An achingly beautiful, tragically romantic book by one of three Germans to recieve the Nobel Prize in the past century. (Boll kicks the booty of the other two, Mann and Grass)

"The Atom Station" by Halldor Laxness

A little tricky to locate but worth the effort, this book is by turns funny, somber, poetic and all-in-all very well put together. Written by the foremost literary figure in modern Iceland-- also a Nobel Lauriate-- I should adittionally warn that the other two books written by this man and currently available in english are not what I consider light (or even entertaining) reading.

"Park City" by Ann Beattie

There was a frightening time in the late 70's when it appeared that short fiction had evolved in its self-satisfied way beyond the fine art of good old fashioned story telling. Writers of all stripes were hard at work denying the value of the narrative, tossing linear time from high windows and basically writing a lot of very dull "stories" without any discernable plot or characters. Ann Beatie and Raymond Carver thankfully proved them all wrong by demonstrating that classical realism does have a place in modern fiction after all. Beatie's short stories are great fun, inventive, revealing, and a little dense; but always entertaining. Her short fiction (and short fiction in general) makes great subway reading, being dolled out as it is in bite-sized, train-ride-length morsels.