Hey, it's been a while since I updated this. Here goes, with some of my recent reading:

- Alfred Corn, A Call in the Midst of the Crowd. Fantastic lyric poetry about NYC interspersed with prose selections. I'll read more of his work.

- Gert Hofmann, Luck. A moving and comical novel about divorce, sketched oddly from the perspective of a kid caught between his father, his mother and her "new man." Hofmann maintains a continual tone of surprise and bemusement which I like.

- Marguerite Duras, No More and Four Novels. The first is near-incoherent: her deathbed ramblings transcribed by Yann Andrea Steiner. Of the latter, I'd read Moderato Cantabile - by far the best - over last summer one evening with a glass of wine, feeling very much like its protagonist. Of the other three novels, The Square - told almost entirely in ruminatory dialogue - is the best.

- Joyce Carol Oates, A Fair Maiden, Beasts, I'll Take You There. She's really treading the same territory - young girls, mysterious/predatory men, the awakening of sinister sexuality - but she does it so well that I know I'll enjoy almost anything she writes these days.

- Isaac Bashevis Singer, Enemies: a Love Story. This was pretty grand too - slightly satirical and madcap, also desperate and tragic. I'll read Singer's stories eventually.

I wish I had more to say, but work is keeping me pretty exhausted these days.