Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What is Justin Taylor reading?

The latest featured contributor to Writers Read: Justin Taylor, editor of The Apocalypse Reader and Come Back, Donald Barthelme.

Two books mentioned in the entry:
Vertigo by W.G. Sebald.... Sebald is one of my favorite writers. Vertigo wasn't great, at least not compared to his other books, at least two of which are bar-none masterpieces (those would be The Rings of Saturn, and The Emigrants), but because he left behind such a small body of work, it felt good to me just to be able to immerse myself in his voice. It was also interesting to see his style in its early, awkward phase; most of his work is totally seamless but in Vertigo you can tell that he's sort of figuring it out as he goes along.
....
Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff. I've been dipping in and out of it. The prose isn't quite as strong as I thought it would be, and his endings are a little beat-you-on-the-head, but the stories take surprising, sometimes fascinating turns so I think I'll eventually make it through the whole thing. [read on]
Visit Justin Taylor's website and MySpace page.

Writers Read: Justin Taylor.

--Marshal Zeringue