The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

Paul Chowder is suffering from writer's block and his long-time girlfriend has left him. As Paul wanders through the days trying to write the introduction to a long overdue poetry anthology, he struggles to rediscover his own poetry as well. Love him or hate him, Paul's stream of consciousness narration never fails to entertain.

This is a book that grew on me as I read it. You kind of want to bop Paul on the head but there is also a fascination about how (or if) he will manage to pull himself out of the mess he has made of his life.

Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson

I must be in the wrong frame of mind to read this book because I am giving up. The way this book was described to me was as "a British Philip Roth" which is pretty accurate. Unfortunately, I don't usually like Roth (The Plot Against America was the exception). This also has blurbs on the cover that talk about how funny this book is. I have to say, at no point during the 3/4 of the book that I read did I titter, chuckle or laugh. One other person is reading this one so maybe they will be able to see something I didn't and if so, I will pick this up again but for now I think it is time to put this aside and work on something else.

Goodbye Lemon by Adam Davies

Goodbye Lemon is one of those edgy, contemporary novels. Think of it like a really depressed American Nick Hornsby novel (About A Boy). The main character, Jack Tennant, is called home when his father suffers a drinking related stroke. After the death of his brother when Jack was five his family fell apart, he and his brother blame his father for being drunk and not watching him, his mother has become a control freak and his father, has managed to stay perpetually drunk. Now the brother has descended into the same kind of drunkenness and has decided that the answer to their problems is for the two of them to kill their father.

Not surprisingly, Jack is affected by the craziness, starts drinking, drives his girlfriend away, loses the (not-so-great) job he has and in general falls apart. Don't worry, the end of the novel, is redemptive and he rebuilds his life in new and surprising ways.

I actually really liked this novel. If he would have ended up a drunk in the gutter it actually would have been a more interesting novel but I do like a bit of hope at the end of my literature.