17/07/14: Nicholson Baker – Room Temperature (1990)

Room Temperature may be the best example of Nicholson Baker's ultra-detailed prose. He takes an idea and lets it unfold, exploring the associated ideas that flow forth (logically and illogically) from it. It's a short book, and beautifully written. Don't expect a "plot". It all takes place in the organic drift of the narrator's thoughts one afternoon as he sits with his baby falling asleep. But in rendering consciousness so vividly, Baker achieves something very rare.

02/10/13: Carrie Fisher – Surrender the Pink (1990)

"I like to talk to you. I like you as a person."

"As opposed to what? An end table?"

This is a supremely witty and perceptive novel about relationships. Carrie Fisher really gets inside the characters' insecurities, and mines these for dark comedy. Some of the dialogue is like Woody Allen at his best – perfectly judged chatter that casually reveals great truths through its self-conscious rhythms. It's generally known that Carrie Fisher's fiction is highly autobiographical and so it's especially interesting to read this after her memoir Wishful Drinking. Star Wars fans may notice the sentence "She felt sad and caught. Caught in the tractor beam of her old obsession." Subconscious reference to the Death Star pulling in the Millennium Falcon or just a weird coincidence? Either way, what a great novel!