What I'm reading these days

Here are the books I'm either poring over, paging through or looking at from the corner of my eye as they loom on my nightstand, murmuring "read me ... read me..."


Massive, insanely detailed bio of the legendary Beat writer. Usually I get bored with writer biographies that start long before the actual writing begins, but this one starts with the childhood of Burroughs' grandfather (he invented the adding machine) and manages to never be boring for a minute. Probably going to have to give "Naked Lunch" another read when I'm done with this one.

Slim (less than 80 pages) volume with capsule commentary on dozens of forgotten paperback books of the 1960s and 1970s that tapped into (or tried desperately to tap) the edgy zeitgeist of the era. Lotsa fun and full of lurid cover reproductions.

Fascinating, deeply personal autobio of Kier-La Janisse, a troubled young woman who channeled the tension of a truly horrific childhood into running horror and cult movie festivals in Canada. Janisse contrasts various episodes in her own past with a variety of movies focusing on women in trouble, and the result is like no other movie book I've ever read. Great -- but strong -- stuff.

Paul Pope is one of my favorite cartoonists, delivering a sense of energy that few others can even approach, let alone match, and revealing his love for comics -- and the process of making comics -- in every panel. This thick, nicely designed hardcover collects a load of his work, from early stuff to recent shorts. It's the perfect thing to whet the appetite before his long-awaited (by this guy, anyway) "Battling Boy" arrives later this year.

I'd been wondering why Wally Wood didn't have a coffee table book to match those of his EC label mates Bill Elder and Jack Davis. Well, now he does and it's a beauty, with work from all stages of his brilliant career, including several gorgeous pages shot from originals, with every brush stroke and correction visible. One of the best art books I've seen in a long, long time.

Like everyone else, I read this one way back in high school, but I wanted to give it another spin now that I've (a) read a lot of crime books and (b) read a lot about Manson and the other crazy folks from that era. It's not exactly the most elegantly written work in this field (a long way from "In Cold Blood," in other words), but it is compelling in the way it puts together the picture of the man behind the murders piece by unsettling piece.

Haven't started this early DeLillo novel yet, but I found it at Half Price Books in Madison, and any novel that combines football and nuclear war sounds pretty solid to me. Speaking of DeLillo, I still have a freebie Blu-ray of "Cosmopolis," the Cronenberg movie based on his novella, that I haven't watched. I need to do that, post haste.

Another purchase from that trip to Half Price Books. I've liked everything I've read by Amis, and I've liked some of his books very, very much ("London Fields," "The Information," "Money"), so even though I read some so-so reviews of this, I figure middling Amis is better than most writers' best stuff. Plus, it could be great. What the hell do those critics know?