Nabokov:
- Lolita: So, this is one of those books that I’d heard so much about I thought I didn’t actually need to read it. Boy, was I wrong. There’s a reason everyone worships Nabokov. You know the story - narrated by a sardonic, intelligent pedophile, and the most commonly cited example of an unreliable narrator. Highly recommended.
- Pnin: Lighter than Lolita, both amusing and pathetic. Recommended.
- Pale Fire: A puzzle book taking the form of a poem by a famous and recently deceased poet, excessively annotated by a delusional colleague. One character, or the other, or both may or may not exist. Metafiction, ambiguous interpretation. Highly recommended.
Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha: Recommended if you are a senior in high school, or a freshman or sophomore in college. Quick read. Buddhism exhausts me.
Ursula K. LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness: Having whet my appetite with Le Guin’s short stories, I thought I’d read one of her novels. Le Guin’s books and stories often take place in the same sprawling universes, and the particular world of this book was explored in one of the short stories I’d read, which made it easier to follow. An envoy from a sort of inter-galactic UN spends this book trying to convince two countries on a frozen planet of people with no gender to join the political body he represents. The novel ends up being a sort of buddy story, wherein two guys cross a frozen tundra. A good read, and well-written. Recommended.
Julia Leigh: Disquiet: This very brief, haunting novel is reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw. It takes five minutes to read, and heavily features a dead baby, so how could you resist? Recommended.
Chris Adrian: The Children’s Hospital: God floods the world again, but this time, a children’s hospital floats with the survivors, rather than an ark of animals. Highly inventive, Adrian’s novel is nevertheless twice as long as it needs to be, and his point and his ending are apparent at least 200 pages before the finish. Still, some beautiful short stories within this tome. Recommended.
