Just because it's been a while since I've updated this, that doesn't mean I haven't been reading anything. Nor does the MTA strike, although the DASH bus is harder to read on the MTA, particularly when it's so overcrowded. Here are a couple of books that I've read recently and recommend. You can order them by clicking on the title.

The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race by Paul Krassner.
This is a really wonderful collection of writings by the master satirist. The first half of the book publishes for the first time a long piece "Who Killed Jerry Rubin?" which deftly surveys the last forty years of the counter-culture and conspiratology, as well as introductions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Krassner himself. The second half of the book reprints some Krassner's most famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) satires of that same time period placed in reverse chronological order. This was an ingenious editorial decision; when you think of Krassner & the Realist, it's hard not to think of the Yippies and Lenny Bruce and so on, but by putting the newest work up front, it not only demonstrates the author's growth as a writer, but also underscores the point made by Vonnegut in his introduction, that Krassner remains an important contemporary writer.
Buy this book--don't steal it!

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Speaking of the Devil, this recent volume collects in book form a series of short pieces that Vonnegut recently wrote and performed for New York public radio. The title references both his earlier God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and a literary device he uses to frame the essays; the book is not, as one might expect, a ode to the joys of euthanasia. The essays claim to be interviews with famous historical figures from John Brown to Issac Asimov, conducted while the author was having near-death experiences presided over and made possible by the ministrations of the good doctor. A characteristically humorous blend of prose, philosophy and social comment, this short (only 79 pages--I read it in one sitting at work!) book proves that, three years after the publication of his "Farewell" novel Timequake, Vonnegut himself remains an important contemporary writer.

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