Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2004

table, I mentioned Robinson's essays a couple weeks ago: she's an austere, often beautiful essayist. Her natural form, I think.

really liked piranesi, struggled with jonathan strange and quit. it did at least seem memorable in how much i wanted to quit it

ZZ Packer's book had a lovely paperback cover that we kept shelved, but no one bought. I would have! To give to a friend: the hardback edition is one of my favorite short story collections ever, and has a good cover---what does the paperback look like?
What essays did you read by her, Alfred? I only know the Gilead series (no prob w the first one's xtian poetic prairie reveries, and I'm a stone cold Southern Gothic atheist, or close to it).

i voted for Gilead. as some of you may know, i am a former Christian and sometimes get a little angry about it. Gilead's characters remind me of what I saw in it in the first place

Yeah, and also an improvement on what I saw in it! Not being the most sensitive candidate.

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I am one of those awful fundamentalist atheists and I have less than zero interest in Robinson's Calvinist project but thought Gilead was a wonderful demonstration of the comfort and efficacy of prayer - obviously not as a way of having a deity fix things for you, but as a way of meditating on difficult questions.

I love 2666 too. I can imagine the burden of writing those crime reports.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 26, 2021 11:56 PM (two days ago)

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Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2005