The list of magnanimity

Dear reader, have you been paying attention? Have you? Here's a test: do I prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream? You could answer: by 'I' do you mean the tapper of keys behind this blog or the one who just took a sip of coffee? When in doubt always answer a question with a question. (Just one of the many nuggets I have pilfered from The Office.)

That's not the test. The answer is obvious: chocolate. We'll tackle this later. Now, the real test is whether you have noticed that I have been speeding through some of the classics and some of the strawberry-flavoured books in my local library. Your reply? Should I have noticed? You learn well, my young padawan.

My number one survival strategy is lists, whether written down and colour-coded or mental and therefore quickly lost. This is core to my zombie apocalypse slash hunger games strategy, so I will tell you only that it involves post-its and a tree.

Anyway, last post I abused Borges' library, a really innocuous building that happens to have swallowed all eternity. Which should be paradise for us bibliophiles. (Dibs on 'F' in the fiction section. Ok, fine, 'M' then.) It isn't. It is terrifying. You've heard about the marketing study where they found that too much choice actually drives consumers away. And every salesperson knows to only give a person three options and to place the option that gives you a higher commission first.

The scale of published fiction in the last 100 years is like counting the human population since we first started practising pressing the buttons of video games with our thumbs. Confining the headcount to literary fiction, I mumble guiltily, still doesn't help. This isn't a choice between different scents of floor cleaner (FYI, no scent, especially not made-up ones like Bright Sunshine), no, this is literature!

This eternal library is a case of survival. Instead of killing zombies and other children, we must read everything. That's an exaggeration, you snort (I can hear you, through the microphone, so be please be polite about my bibliophilic delusion).

In the absence of chocolate and strawberry coloured stickers along the spines to guide my quest, I have made a list. Ok, many lists and some were colour-coded. Some are stuck on my fridge but are so faded and blotched with coffee stains you can't read them, others are pinned to a ribbon knotted onto my bedroom door handle, and some are lost in the right hemisphere of my brain, because that's where lost and found is.

The winners of this game are the titles posted on this blog, to the right >>, and those saved on my phone. The one occasion I deviated from this list ended badly, not in a zombie bite, but in disappointment. Point proven; lists are the key to survival. Also, apparently, technology.

Now that I have distracted you from the impending reappearance of the Dreaded List on this blog, here is a condensed list of my approved reads (and future reviews), gleaned mostly from the internet (the most trustworthy, obviously) and recommendations (a mixed bag, except for the ones on FB, obviously):

• 1Q84 by Haruki Marukami (unread; alternate history) I think I've bored you enough with my ravings about this and Kafka on the Shore. That's why bloggers use labels (below right)
• Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (unread; cross-genre) having read a couple of his other novels, I wouldn't rank him above David Mitchell in this category, but then I don't think many short of James Joyce could
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (read; dystopian) the character of the girl at the beginning cinched this novel for me, although I wasn't so thrilled with the book-burning
• Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (unread; literary) I hereby admit that I have never read this classic novel
• A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers (unread; post-modern look how smart I am) we studied A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and I hated it for exactly the same reason others adore it: the the iconoclastic, self-conscious self-deprecation, but I'm willing to give him another go. I'm magnanimous like that
• The Maddadam books by Margaret Atwood (two of three read; apocalyptic) post in proximity, so work, you
• The Member of the Wedding by Carson Mccullers (unread; literary) I'm magnanimous but not perfect. I hate Mccullers just a teensy bit because she published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which is beautiful, at 23. Pure jealousy. I will read this but I will feel sorry for myself the entire time, so prepare yourselves
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain (read; noir fiction) only 116 pages but perfectly paced. I don't usually enjoy crime novels but this was a satisfying, meaty use of the conventions
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (unread; satire) I have faith but I need it because I read Cat's Cradle recently. It is a few marbles short of Philip K Dick's drug-fuelled novels. So, yes, I need it
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein (partly read; science fiction) the beginning reminds me of A Brave New World, although I can't say why. Also reminds me of the soundtrack to Lost Boys: "People are strange when you're a stranger"

My closest library loans out books for two weeks at a time. That gives me 16 weeks to finish all eight of the unread books. But don't worry, I'll sneak in some unexpected reviews just to see if you've been paying attention. You.

Armageddon in retrospect

Your moods are in flux during a day (right?). Different moods require different books (right?). Also, different situations require different types of book.

For instance, you are reading over breakfast and need some way to hold the book open without using your hands. You need a thinnish paperback that slides under your bowl with bending the spine. You are sitting outside. You need something sturdy that you can plonk on your lap or on the ground without the pages constantly flipping over. You need a thick hardcover.

(Right?)

I appease this fickleness by reading different books of different formats at one time. A fiction, a non-fiction, a science fiction. Sometimes I read multiple books from each type, provided they are easy to distinguish. In addition to reading Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth, I am also reading Armageddon in retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut.

(I confess, I have only now learnt to spell the word Armageddon. Don't judge me; at least I'm honest.)

This is a collection of short stories. I generally don't enjoy short stories, but the Byliner single series on Kindle has converted me. (Margaret Atwood has left me biting my knuckles bloody for her next installment - and I swear, she knows it! - and Nicole Krauss has intrigued me.)

I expected something different. Something more brutal, set in the middle of the action, throwing grenades at the reader - tsa tsa tsa. What I am getting is a Sunday drive that ends when the path becomes overgrown from disuse and a smoke bomb is set off overhead. Tssssssssaaaaaa. (Imagine I am out of the car by this time, else the metaphor doesn't work. Hang on, perhaps I should be taking a Sunday walk, but then where would it end...?)

I am only on the third story (I skipped the blah-blah of the son's introduction and a speech by the author - publishers need to start putting these things at the end, after we're finished reading - which took out about a third of the book - bastards), but the story "Guns before butter" has me dancing before the overgrowth, trying to figure out a way through short of scything the brush aside.

I won't describe the premise, because the moral will jump out at you if I do. But no! Two pages before the end, the moral is thrust aside by the flight of two pins but you don't know why at first, and really, I doubt you ever fully know, even though the writer convinces you that you do. You take a step further down the road (now you're taking a Sunday walk) and the brush begins to grow around you.

Those pins are rattling around in the corners of my apartment - not even in my skull, because my brain takes care of that - but out here in the real world. The short story will fall short of my excitement, I promise you, but that is because you are taking it on face value. Read it, think about it and listen to the pins drop (get it?).

At the risk of TMI, this is the book I read in the bath. It is light enough that I can hold it up without bruising the webby skin between thumb and index finger, and I can read one story in one, uh, sitting. Also, I need breaks from Sacred Hunger. I mean, it won the Booker, so what else did I expect from the novel?