Just Because

The family across the street from me holds a really nice-looking shabbat dinner every week where the whole family is gathered around the table in their nicest starched and ironed and eat what looks like a very nice dinner off of very nice china. I was reheating some old lasagna and identifying with the Little Match Girl.

I've decided to tally the results of my summer reading now that summer's over into four categories. For some of you this may seem like a remedial high school summer reading list, but that's because you attended fancy private school and not Minneapolis South High:

1) Very Good
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, DF Wallace
Personal History, Katharine Graham
The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy
Ada, or Ardor, Nabakov
The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
Heart of Darkness, Conrad
Paradise Lost, Milton
American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis

2)Sort of Good But Not So Much
The Rachel Papers, Amis
Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, Salinger
Ways of Seeing, John Berger

3)Pretty Bad But Strong Effort
House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski

4)Wish I Had Finished to Assess Accurately
Mason & Dixon, Pynchon