Bookstorm

Happy Halloween. I still don't have anything interesting post, but stick with me a bit longer--I'm planning a long piece on Friedrich Nietzsche, who, in the space of two books, has become not only my favorite philosopher, but one of my favorite writers. I intend to read all his books by year's end.

In the meantime, read his autobiography Ecce Homo. It's one of the best books I've read this year. It's brilliant and surprisingly funny, and Nietzsche's wit and audacity are untouchable. It also contains one of the best and most truthful lines I've read this year: "I am not a man, I am dynamite."

If that doesn't sum up Nietzsche and his philosophy, I don't know what does.

I may be living in Florida right now, but I can't ignore this: my beloved Colorado Rockies are in the World Series. And this, my friends, is how we do it in the Mile High City. Sorry, New York.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been telling co-workers that Ngugi wa Thiong'o is going to win this year's Nobel Prize for literature. "Just watch," I told them. "He'll win. Then you'll have to read his books just to be considered 'literary.'" Of course, this was met with looks of confusion and the inevitable, "Who?" The fact that I probably mispronounced his name certainly didn't help.

The moral? Don't ever trust my picks for any literary award. I'm not bitter or anything. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve it. I'm just--well, shocked. Would this qualify as some sort of upset? I never would have picked Doris Lessing in any year. She barely crosses my mind. But now--well, obviously, I'm going to remedy that.

I highly, highly recommend Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End. It certainly doesn't hurt that it's been nominated for the National Book Award. I'd like to think that reading this book has upped my literary snobbery, but damn it, lit-snobbery is so tiresome.