Six Problems For Don Isidro Parodi by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy-Casares (1942) – A half dozen satirical detective stories set in a world of literary nitwits, solved grudgingly by the jailbound barber, Parodi. Virtuoso silliness from a pair of major Argentine authors.

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante (1991) – A fascinating survey of the seamier side of Manhattan, through the 19th and very early 20th centuries. McGurk’s Suicide Hall… now there’s a dive you don’t want to mess with.

We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick (1962) – A PKD book I hadn’t already read, and it’s a low key gem. Small time businessmen build surprising simulacra of Abraham Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton and come into conflict with a Gates/Trump-ish tycoon. But that all falls away from a tale of misplaced love and mental illness. Touchingly humane. It must have driven the sci-fi geekboys up the wall when it was serialized in Amazing magazine.

The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605/1615) – My ‘antiquity read’ for this summer. Some classics are called a classic for good reason, and this is one of them. It also has a reputation as the first modern novel, and I would not be inclined to disagree. Besides its surprising meta-fictional games, the characters are more realistically rounded out and life-like than is usual in early literature. And then there are the projectile vomiting and poop jokes — modern box office gold. If you’ve ever wished that Shakespeare had written some novels (I know I have), this just might scratch that itch (and wouldn’t you know it — there are some conspiracy theorists with the idea that Cervantes and Shakespeare were one and the same). This edition uses the 1755 English translation by Tobias Smollett. Not having read any other translations, I’m really not a reliable judge, but I did enjoy this one.

Popeye, Vol. 1: I Yam What I Yam by E.C. Segar (1928-1931) – A weighty tome collecting the earliest Popeye stories from E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip. This is not the watered down and domesticated Popeye of later years. This is primal, salty Popeye in epic comic adventure yarns. Lost spirits of the collective unconscious, summoned back and trapped in a large and heavy book that is impressive even as a totemic object.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick (1969) – Psychic operatives and industrial espionage lead to a meditation on death and not letting go.

The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (1964) – One of PKD’s major novels. Reality, perception, drugs, theology and doll accessories all collide in a thoughtful tale of interstellar invasion.

Krazy and Ignatz 1939-1940: A Brick Stuffed With Moom-bims by George Herriman (1939-1940) – Compiling a couple more years of funnypage fine art and patter.

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan (1964) – A re-read from the teen years. Such a strange, strange book. Very dreamlike with its mixups of indoors and outdoors and the mundane and the odd. A brief, fast read with a confusing aftertaste. I can’t quite see Neko Case‘s interpretation of it — I agree with much of what she’s theorizing, but some aspects, I can’t find any evidence in the text myself, other than Margaret indeed getting a real raw deal.

You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song Of The Croon by Lenny Kaye (2005) – A biography of 1920s/30s crooner, Russ Columbo, also covering many other players and facets of those years in showbiz. Kaye’s prose is stylishly impressionistic, sort of like a Raymond Chandler unchained from mystery plots. Some readers would prefer a more straight ahead approach, but I felt it worked well in this case. I found it a fascinating evocation of a very different (though some things are always the same) era of life in the USA.

Breakfast Of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1973) – Well, sure, I pulled this off the shelf because he died. And I already re-read Cat’s Cradle a couple of years ago. This is a very strange book, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I like Cat’s Cradle better, really — it supplies more inventive ways to think about the world, more hope, somehow, though in a very bleak way. Breakfast is unrelentingly bleak and hopeless (with the exception of one or two small points), and delivered in simple, children’s book-like prose. And then there are his own childish illustrations. A very strange package indeed. Essential for a look back at that era, though.

Which Side Are You On? An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America by Dick Weissman (2006) – An expansive (yet inevitably incomplete) survey of the 20th century commodification of US folk music, from the early ‘song collectors’ to present-day blog-folkies, with an emphasis on the emergent 1940s to 1960s. Weissman was a participant in the 60s wave with The Journeymen, and fills in with many personal observations — he’s not afraid to throw in his own opinions, even when contrary. Yeah, there’s some dirty laundry here. It’s a very outlined book, and moves along smoothly, but really needed better proofreading. There are a lot of miswordings, flubbed numbers and minor errors. This seems to be a problem with more and more books, these days. Run it through a spellchecker and throw it out the door…

The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962) – A low-key, early PKD classic with near minimal ‘sf’ content. The setting is a 1962 where the Axis powers won WWII, told through a small group of characters, some of whom never actually meet. By the ending, it becomes quite disturbing and confusing, in its quiet and subtle way.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) – Another piece of legendary novel wranglin’ from Mr. Dickens. To be honest, I like Bleak House better — more complex, with its multiple narrative voices and sharper social satire. But there’s no disputing the big guy’s chops. Here he’s in more of a smooth and sly mode (wielding a billiards cue rather than a cricket bat?), with the shaggy clockwork tale of a poor boy’s journey from rags to riches to… something else. But it has to be said… Pip is a dork.

Chronicles, Volume One by Bob Dylan (2004) – Dylan goes autobiographical. A rambling and interesting read. Dylan has a rather unusual prose voice and, like Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, seems to be unstuck in time.

The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the ’60s TV Pop Sensation by Andrew Sandoval (2005) – I’ve already noted my abiding fascination with the bizarre tale of The Monkees. If you want to know more, this is the most serious and fact-packed book on the subject. As the subtitle may tip you off, it uses a day by day log format, covering nearly every damned thing that happened in the core years. The detail is almost overwhelming, drawn from film and recording studio documents, period media coverage and latter day interviews with the principals, crew and others. There is much debunking of old myths and clarification of confusions. And I finally know exactly who played on what and when. Is the journal format a good ‘read?’ Not really. It’s a bit like having someone drop a big (very well-sorted) crate of research in your lap. But it does deliver maximum information density, and as a benefit, you’re free to put your own reading on the events, rather than accepting an author’s agenda. Essential.

Omnibus by Paul Cain (1933) – A 2006 reprint of his notorious 1933 novel, Fast One, along with the short story collection, Seven Slayers. This is one hard-assed slab of hard-boiled writing. Cain’s work may not have the authority of Hammett’s, or the style of Chandler’s, but it does have acres of mean, amoral attitude. Ouch!

Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus (1989) – I first read this back in the early 1990s, and it holds up okay in the present. Marcus ties punk in with obscure revolutionary movements throughout history. Some good insights, some wild over-readings. Most useful for its beginner’s guide to the lettrists and situationists.

Krazy and Ignatz 1937-1938: Shifting Sands Dusts Its Cheek In Powdered Beauty by George Herriman (1937-38) – Two more years of full-page Sunday comics from the best strip ever, Krazy Kat.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1817) – The original classic, which bears so little resemblance to 20th century film versions, it’s scary. Fine prose, though I confess that the unrelenting evilness of the creature here is less interesting to me than the more ambiguous creature of the (James Whale directed) movies. The anti-science subtext bugs me a bit, too. But wonderfully merciless towards its characters. Available online.

England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond by Jon Savage (1991) – A fat account of first generation British punk, using the Sex Pistols as the obvious main thread. Good stuff, Savage did a lot of his own interview legwork.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968) – This is the book on which the movie Blade Runner was based, and some editions use that title instead (wouldn’t you know it, that’s the version I got stuck with back in the 1980s). Other than the basic setup there is almost no resemblance between the movie and the book — the book being altogether more strange, daft and interesting. Besides the androids, there’s a lot of musing about empathy and entropy. And household pets. One of PKD’s relatively minor works, I think, but fine stuff regardless.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1853) – My ‘antiquity read’ for this summer. Taken as a bare outline, this could be a soapy potboiler, but with Dickens’ endless twists, twisted characters, ornate sarcasm and wild prose, it’s a quite a ride. English jurisprudence, upperclass twits and false philanthropists all take a beating.

From The Velvets To The Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For a Post-Punk World by Clinton Heylin (1993) – A pretty good counterpart to the post-punk coverage of Rip It Up, this covers the early US roots of punk from the 1960s to the 70s: The Velvet Undergound, The MC5, The Stooges, the NYC and Cleveland scenes and more, winding up as the CBGBs bands have their variously nasty late 70s collisions with the US commercial mainstream. On the debit side, the writing is a bit stiff and sometimes oddly judgemental in tone. And there doesn’t seem to have been any firsthand interviewing in the research process. But it does bundle up a lot of ‘early days’ info on a lot of bands.

Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick (1964) – Classic early 1960s PKD: set up a batch of characters with complicated relationships in a tokenly sci-fi setting and pull reality out from under their feet halfway through. Includes lots of disturbing material about schizophrenia.

A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking by Samuel Fuller, with Christa Lang Fuller and Jerome Henry Rudes (2002) – The autobigraphy of pioneering independent filmmaker, Samuel Fuller (1912-1997). And what a life — newpaper copyboy at 12, crime reporter by 17, freelance journo tramping around Depression-era America, screenwriting in the 30s, infantry duty in WWII and then becoming the prototype indie writer/director in 1950s Hollywood. He seemingly met everyone you ever heard of at some point or another. A good read, though you can sense which parts are truly by him (the growlier parts) and which parts were finished off posthumously by his coauthors. If you don’t read the book, at least watch some of his movies.

The Official Prisoner Companion by Matthew White and Jaffer Ali (1988) – A book about that eternal candidate for best TV series ever: The Prisoner. The usual deal… an episode guide, background information, a few shooting script excerpts. You see, back in the days before the intarnets, we actually needed books like this.

Rendezvous In Black by Cornell Woolrich (1948) – A noirish mystery story. Or, not so much mystery as “how to stop him?” Not as hardboiled cool as Hammett or stylish as Chandler, but has a nicely depressive Americana tone. Funny thing… there are characters named Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds (2005) – A crisp and clean accounting of a very busy period for independent minded music. Up to now, this era has been given little coverage in the history books, so it’s good to see a serious survey. I didn’t realize until too late that the US edition is a cut down version of the UK edition, so you might want to be sure to seek out the ‘long player’ version instead.

Krazy and Ignatz 1935-1936: A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy by George Herriman – Fantagraphics’ ongoing collection of the full-page Krazy Kat Sunday comics moves into the color years, and what a treat for the eyes it is. I love this stuff. Mr. Herriman’s ageless creation is on my list of things which make life bearable. Along with the weekly strips themselves, there’s also a nice batch of extra material.

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (1937) – Hardcore big science from the philospher elder of classic science fiction. Nothing less than a history and exploration of the entire cosmos, focusing on the development of intelligence. Highly imaginative and highly convincing.

On Two Wheels edited by Don McKay (1971) – A used book find — an anthology of short fiction and non-fiction about motorcyclists, ranging from a 1930s hard-boiled racing yarn by Horace McCoy to Hunter S.Thompson’s magazine pieces on the Hell’s Angels to Arlo Guthrie’s Motorcycle Song. Even the Frank Rooney short story which served as the basis for The Wild One movie — and boy, did they ever change that plot around. Lightweight, worth a grab.

Southern California: An Island On The Land by Carey McWilliams (1946) – A long valued history of Southern California from pre Columbian days to the mid 1940s, concentrating on the American era. Dirty laundry included. My understanding of the region has been much illuminated by this book. Still quite relevant.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922) – A reread from the 70s. Herman Hesse dives into Hindu and Buddhist spirituality. Short, simple, thoughtful. Full text available free online.

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962) – A way, way back reread. This ‘youth’ sci-fi/fantasy milestone opens with, “It was a dark and stormy night,” and more or less gets away with it. Odd stuff.

John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter (1998) – The most carefully researched biography so far of this jazz giant. A bit academic perhaps, but “just the facts, ma’am” is a solid approach. Lots of nuts ‘n’ bolts musical analysis.

Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby, Vol. 2 (1971-72) – The remainder of Jack Kirby’s tripped-out run of comics about Superman’s ex-pal. Glorious chaos.

CBS: Reflections In A Bloodshot Eye by Robert Metz (1975) – A long out of print history of CBS, from the 1920s radio days to the glitzy 70s. Good inside dirt.

VALIS by Philip K. Dick (1981) – This semi autobiographical piece is perhaps PKD’s most disturbing novel ever, as his life turns into a PKD novel.

The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville (1857) – Melville’s riverboat meditation on reality as an endlessly nested series of con jobs. It feels like a con job itself, with wickedly elaborate language and always something hidden behind its back.

Trouble Is My Business by Raymond Chandler – 4 short Philip Marlowe stories from the mid to late 30s. Tuning up for the novels and a fine job of it.