three women's true stories retold, with cross-cutting, as fiction. It's different.

*** good book...lots of info, including Japanese knife vocab

*** ...when she used to rock 'n' roll. Poems.

**** horse-race–obsessed, autistic Australian genius writes unique short stories

*** dialysis and death...Hugo is the best

* if you've read Infinite Jest, these stories may cause flashbacks

* cep writes the book harper lee could not in 150 pages then tells story of harper lee's writer's block

another dud...hard to follow, hard to care

genius boy seeks father...I didn't get it...484 pages

not scientific, but thought-provoking...it does have that malcolmgladwellian stink

depressing...not recommended...loser takes antidepressants and spirals downward...

* good poem on decline of academia, funny title

** Unless you're a Lipsyte "completist" like I am, this is not the novel to start with (read "The Ask"). The story is pretty much without interest (is this really about Kurt Cobain?) and the characters are cardboard cutouts, but his sentences are, as usual, excellent: funny, witty, insightful.

*** Famous son of a famous father. Convincing musings on identity (it's not necessarity narrative), free will, the mind-body problem. His clear, jargon-free writing style is refreshing.

** prose poems...not bad

***** third time through: entertaining, funny, perceptive

extravagantly pompous writing style

**** best book of lit crit i have ever read...spectacular, brilliant