* the making of a $50,000 coat

***** a great one; part Cather, part Salter, part Tolstoy; gripping and moving

* some memorable characters

what's not to love about a book that describes some of the weirdest creatures on earth? lots, if it strays into "philosophy" every other sentence and is written by someone who is not a scientist...and the dude can't spell "Nietzsche."

**** great reading, great recipes, nice design

**** history of the pilcrow, octothorpe (now hashtag), interrobang, @, *, dagger, hyphens, dashes (more than just en and em); fascinating, lively, and well written.

* i kept wishing I was reading the latest sam lipsyte instead; reads like a moderately successful pastiche of a pynchon novel

*** the usual themes, pseudo-baudelairian style; i liked it

all plot; this novel wants to be a screenplay

***** cave wimp is great...love the late style

***** great story about charley patton, early blues artist

***** more great art

** some good writing early on, but greek travelogue goes on for too long

booker-shmooker. This is one of the worst novels I have ever read. Preposterous premise (clueless clones in fake 1970s "England"), preposterous narration (sample sentence: "We had sex"), preposterous dialogue (I'll spare you). On the other hand, you could use it as a handbook on how to write bad fiction. While reading it, I felt like I was trapped in a disastrous creative writing seminar.

***** some great stuff on his twisted relationships with women

*** amusing to read in spanish, especially "la tortuga artificial" (the mock turtle)

***** more great, dark short stories

***** great, dark short stories

*** attempted this in spanish; seems like a great book but hard to follow (chronology is jumbled)

*** strange, unique, funny but disjointed: reads like a series of one-liners

***** more masterpieces

*** strange, disturbing, brief

***** yet more

***** more great stuff

***** and more

***** more greatness

** hokey but useful (think teenagers)

**** the professor's house: a strange one; lots of ambivalence

*** read this in spanish; i never studied spanish

** not as lively as his first book, but makes a convincing case that facebook, google and other "free" sites that spy on us will destroy the middle class; the solution is micropayments going both ways

***** more great art

***** more masterpieces

***** masterworks of genius

*** mr. natural and "keep on truckin' "; crumb seems to have found his style

** starting to get interesting; jive talk; fritz begins carousing

* still very early

**** insightful, creative look at how the internet reduces human beings

** strange graphic novel based on orpheus and euridice

**** great short stories, especially "L'uccisione del drago," "Una goccia," and "Il cane che ha visto Dio"

*** la chute for our times

*** guide to cockney rhyming slang

**** excellent translation of a strange book

*** interesting hodgepodge of chapters; "intuition pumps" fully explained; needs a glossary

**** excellent translation; great, surreal novel of an inexplicably shape-shifting animal

james salter: light years

Very mixed feelings about this novel. I spent time trying to find the word to describe my annoyance: is the style "precious" or "pretentious"? There were a few great moments: "To her husband she was understanding, even affectionate, though they slept as if there were an agreement between them; not so much as a foot ever touched. There was an agreement, it was marriage." And this: "Solid, generous, practical, he was all hull; he had no keel. The rudder was small, the compass drifting."

* (see review above)

** reads like a good screenplay; some language does not fit narrator (unless he got an mfa in creative writing); note to all: don't use a car crash as a plot device

*** a strange one; his last novel (i have now read them all)

***** more great stories; i especially loved "and then"

***** strange tale of two brothers, twins

**** a great novella; tolstoyesque; a real surprise for me—I will read more of her stuff