Brent Alan James

Happy 4th, folks

:: July 2 Mix ::

Motorcycle - Rumble Strips (2007)
Hey Ma - James (2008)
Orphans - Beck (2008)
People Just Love To Play With Words - Men At Work (1982)
Louie - Ida Maria (2008)
Epic Last Song - Does It Offend You, Yeah? (2008)

Benjamin Black

Title : Christine Falls
Author : Benjamin Black (John Banville)
Country : Ireland
Year : 2006

Benjamin Black is the nom de plume, nom de guerre of John Banville when he turns his talents to the so-called crime genre, but Christine Falls doesn’t seem to fit inside such narrow categorization. I must admit, I find it tiresome when people say that this or that crime novel defies the genre, for such instances are usually the rule, not the exception. But so many aspects of Christine Falls, primarily its intense scene description, suggest a period-piece novel (1950s Ireland and the U.S.) that just happens to involve a crime or two.

Important: This is the first book in the pathologist Quirke series, so start with this one. The others are The Silver Swan and the brand-new The Lemur.

Highly recommended to those who love a good yarn and to those who like their books linguistically lush.

June 28 mix

:: June 28 Mix ::

All You Need Is Me - Morrissey (2008)
El Presente - Julieta Venegas (2008)
Ballantines - Aimee Mann (2008)
No Myth - Michael Penn (1989)
Little Red Door - The Zutons (2008)

BookClub : The Gathering

Title : The Gathering
Author : Anne Enright
Country : Ireland
Year : 2007

The Basics: A woman returns home to tell her mother that a sibling has died, begins gathering the family - and the body of her brother in England, victim of suicide.

The Gathering is narrated through the fog of memory, always cognizant of the latter’s fallibility and the implicit deal we readers make with works of fiction, the agreement that we may be lied to at any moment and that is fine.

The prose, as tight as poetry, bounces off your brain at every page until, on page 143, it delivers a shot to your stomach, which leaves you reeling and changes everything. And it can also be funny, in its tragic way. Here’s a sample:

The problem with Liam was never something big. The problem with Liam was always a hundred small things. He had cigarettes but no matches, did I have matches? Yes, but the match breaks, the match doesn’t strike, he can’t light these cheap Albanian trash matches. Do I have a lighter? Fuck, he has spilt the matches. Why don’t I have a lighter? He goes to find a lighter, rattling all the drawers in the kitchen. He walks out, leaving the back door open. He comes in the front door twenty minutes later with a lighter he found in the street - lying just outside the house actually - except that it is wet. He lights the oven from the pilot and lights the cigarette from the oven and burns his hand and after he has put his hand under the tap for a while he fusses in the cupboard for a baking tin and he puts the lighter - a cheap, plastic lighter - he actually puts it in the oven, and when I scream at him he shouts right back at me and there is a tussle at the oven door. After which, there is an hour of sulking because I do not trust him to dry a lighter in the oven without burning the house down. And after the sulk comes The Discussion.
Liam is clever.
No. Liam is dead.
Liam was clever, I should say.

Rating: 3/4 Specs (good/very good), basically because it’s the dysfunctional family genre, which isn’t one of my favorites, but you cannot deny the power of this story and the artistry with which it is delivered.

April 25 Mix

:: April 25 Mix ::

White Boy - James (2008)
Librarian - My Morning Jacket (2008)
I’d Rather Dance With You - Kings Of Convenience (2004)
Como Siempre Soñé - Javiera Mena
Remember Me - The Zutons (2004)
Living In The Moment - Mason Jennings (2002)