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Posts tagged as “Peter Carey”

Looking for something to read?

If you’re anything like me, and chances are you aren’t, then you have a huge stack of books on your shelves waiting for you to stay home more often and actually read them. I feel a little like a bad parent, but what are you going to do? However, having a back log of books doesn’t prevent me from wanting to acquire more books that I might eventually at some point in the future get around to reading. I mean, books are beautiful objects in their own right, and what’s the harm? It’s better to spend the 12.95 or whatever on a book than to spend it on cocaine. It wouldn’t be very MUCH cocaine, but the point still holds.

Once you’ve finished reading my pile of free, wildly captivating fiction, you might find yourself in need of something else to read while patiently waiting for me to update this site. Where might you find suggestions?

How about a surprisingly poorly written list of famous author’s favorite books?

Did you know that JCO’s favorite book is Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky? Or that David Foster Wallace picked C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters? Or that Michael Chabon, who I adore, picked Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges? Lots of surprises! Lots of new, fun books to read. The list even features Peter Cary of not-letting-me-into-Hunter fame. What was his favorite book? Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

My only disappointment in this list—besides its ham-fisted writing style—is that my favorite author of all time, Cormac McCarthy, was not represented. I wonder what his favorite book is? Mr. McCarthy, if you read this, leave us a comment. Thanks!

A funny passage from Peter Carey’s Theft.

I am reading Theft by Peter Carey right now and I must say that I am enjoying it. I like how he bounces between two imperfect narrators to reveal aspects of the story that might not come through just one narrator’s internal filter.

Anyway, I was reading on the subway as I do, and I read something that made me laugh aloud. Here you go. A passage from the book used completely without permission.

The taxis in New York are a total nightmare. I don’t know how anybody tolerates them, and I am not complaining about the eviscerated seats, the shitty shock absorbers, the suicidal left-hand turns, but rather the common faith of all those Malaysian Sikhs, Bengali Hindus, Harlem Muslims, Lebanese Christians, Coney Island Russians, Brooklyn Jews, Buddhists, Zarathustrians—who knows what?—all of them with the rock-solid conviction that if you honk your bloody horn the sea will part before you. You can say it is not my business to comment. I am a hick, born in a butcher’s shop in Bacchus Marsh, but fuck them, really. Shut the fuck up.