Reading List / Soundtrack

Reading List:

This week I picked up the new books by Charles Wright (Scar Tissue) and Mark Strand (Man and Camel). They both are very good so far (OK, I haven't gotten very far in either of them, but I have a good excuse).

I also picked up this week at the Wave Bus Tour Reading in Omaha:

Suspension of a Secret in Abandoned Rooms by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (I loved his book lug your careless body out of the careful dark)

Can You Relax in My House by Michael Earl Craig

Moon Garden by Anthony McCann

They all look promising. I'm looking forward to reading them. But before I get to them (and before I really read the Wright & Strand seriously) I'm re-reading the work of Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman, as they're visiting my slice of Missouri this evening. This is my first time reading Hillman's Pieces of Air in the Epic. I'm loving it.

Soundtrack:

I just discovered Clem Snide. Excellent. I recommend The Ghost of Fashion. Highly.

Also in high rotation on the mp3 player:

Greenland by Cracker
At War with the Mystics by The Flaming Lips
Modern Times by Bob Dylan
Living with War by Neil Young

Actually, it's not Living with War, though, I have a bootleg compilation of the Living with War songs as currently done by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young on tour. It's much better. Fuller. And the songs sound more realized, though the lyrics could have used an extra afternoon's work. Neil Young, why must you work so fast?

Best album of the year for me though, is still a toss-up between the Cracker and Lips albums.