New Books!

I mentioned that I was at Powell's books today; here's what I bought:

Hazan
This is an updated and expanded edition of a cookbook I used to cook out of all the time until an ex took it in the breakup (to be fair, it was her book, even though she never used it). I bought it used, and I am quite happy to have this back in my possession.

Also:

Quixote
Motherfucking Don Quixote. Every now and then, I get the urge to tackle an immense book like this. I leafed through it in the store: the translation appears to be excellent and full of life. I'll let you know how successful I am tilting at this windmill (see what I did there?).

New Vonnegut Pages to Soak up Your Semen

Vonnegut

If you haven't heard, there is a book of unpublished Kurt Vonnegut short stories out, and holy shit your pretentious cousin who can't hold down a real job just shit his pants so hard that the report could literally be heard blocks away. I first became aware of Kurt Vonnegut when my unbelievable douchebag of a half-brother loaned me Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, a short-story collection, back when we were still talking (he was in college, I believe).

I never finished it, because the stories just didn't do a thing for me. They were all obviously well-written by somebody who knew what he was doing, but in the end they seemed rather pointless and a waste of time.

Later, after reading about Vonnegut even more, and absorbing the heaps and heaps of literary bukkake flung his way, I decided to give him another shot. I read Hocus Pocus and Slaughterhouse Five. Nope. I didn't like those, either. Vonnegut could obviously write like a motherfucker. However, his stories were constantly hamstrung by his own peculiarities, fetishes and obsessions. What saddens me the most about Kurt Vonnegut is that I genuinely like his writing; his turn of phrase; his use of language. I just hate his stories, and I'm not going to pretend that I like them just because an entire generation of hippies has raised him up to the level of a prophet.

So now we have this new collection of stories, ones that either the man couldn't get published or didn't even try to. These were the stories that were deemed, either by Vonnegut himself or by numerous professional magazine editors, to be unpublishable.

Why would anybody in their right mind want to read this shit? I've read unpublished fiction before, and you know what it all overwhelmingly has in common? It's fucking terrible, that's what.

If you're a fan, go ahead and worship at this new altar: I hope you find it worth your time. However, if you truly love the man's work, isn't he worth the respect of not grave-digging through the shit he might not have ever wanted anybody to see?

At Last! (But I Am Too Poor)

Roosevelt

The third and final chapter in Edmund Morris's epic biography of Theodore Roosevelt just came out. Unfortunately, it's only available in hardbound at the moment, and I don't have a spare $35 laying around just to that I can read the last installment in one of the most monumental works of biography ever written

So, I'll just bide my time and wait for the (slightly) cheaper paperback edition.

But we wants it!