Meshugah by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud

The best of the three books I've read of his, the others being The Natural and The Fixer.

Born on my birthday, along with Wittgenstein, but that's not enough for me to rate him all that highly as an author.

Only started reading him because Philip Roth loved him. In The Natural, I can see perhaps where Roth was inspired by the humour, which I didn't find particularly funny, but, more generally, I'm not sure what Roth saw in him.

The Rationalists by John Cottingham (Book 4 of a History of Western Philosophy)

Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose

Not bad. I liked her not making hard and fast rules and letting examples speak for themselves (although I must admit that I didn't read many of the longer examples in their entirety.)

Books and authors she has inspired me to read:
- Isaac Babel
- Chekhov
- Flannery O' Connor (Wise Blood)
- Heinrich Von Kleist (The Marquise of O--)

The Magician by Somerset Maugham

Maugham is one of my favourite writers. This book, however, is terrible. Not only by his own standards, but more generally, it is third-rate at best.

Maugham admits it's quite ordinary in an introduction written many years after he had written the book, and a long while after he had fixed on his more well-known style and subject matter that reached their apotheosis in Cakes and Ale.

I think I've read more Maugham than anybody else. Of those works, The Magician is without doubt the worst.

I've read the following, in order of preference: Cakes and Ale, The Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge, Collected Short Stories Volumes I - IV, Up at the Villa, Of Human Bondage, Ashenden: Or the British Agent, The Summing Up, A Writer's Notebook, Theatre, The Magician.

All up, fifteen books. Cakes and Ale is ridiculously good, and I was pleased to read an essay written by Vidal on Maugham that concurred wholeheartedly. The Moon and Sixpence and The Painted Veil are not far off that high watermark either.

I think only Philip Roth and Paul Auster can compete in terms of quantity, although Auster doesn't come close to matching the other two in terms of quality.

Roth's books, in order of preference: I Married a Communist, Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral, The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography, The Human Stain, The Plot Against America, My Life as a Man, Goodbye Columbus, Reading Myself and Others, Sabbath's Theater, Conversations with Philip Roth, Everyman, Patrimony: A True Story, The Ghost Writer, The Anatomy Lesson, The Breast, The Great American Novel.

All up, seventeen books (which beats Maugham!) The first six listed are absolutely brilliant. I'm reeling at the thought of someone being able to write six masterpieces. Incredible.

Auster's books, in order of preference: New York Trilogy, The Invention of Solitude, The Red Notebook, Leviathan, The Book of Illusions, The Music of Chance, Moon Palace, Oracle Night, Brooklyn Follies, In the Country of Last Things, Timbuktu.

All up, eleven books, of which nothing comes close to the New York Trilogy in brilliance. In fact, the last three are embarrassing and those of the middle are just repetitions on similar themes.

Emma by Jane Austen

Too many girly girls gave Jane Austen a bad name.

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

My lordy this is entertaining, my lordy this is funny. But it's too much. Too much of the stylistic niceties makes for an unhealthy sugar rush and dyspepsia.

I felt the same thing about Lolita. After a while, one wants something to happen. Something, anything.

The flourish, though, sheer delight (there's no need to use copula when writing about Russian author (nor need for articles.))