I have read a bunch of Munro, Atwood, and Lahiri. I'm very well read, so when I say I haven't read many women, I mean that, in perspective, I've not read a lot. I also like Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, Jennifer Egan, and Gillian Flynn. Haven't heard of NoViolet Bulawayo, but I'll add that to my goodreads right now.…

I think the humor is couched in how people hear Steve McQueen and think dashing Hollywood sex symbol and then they see a picture of him and it's this fat black guy. That's the only way I can see it being even a little funny. What else is funny about this situation?

It's not that she's totally unrelatable, either. It's something else. I can love a character and a book with no relatable characters (White Teeth, for example). I don't know. Something's off with the book and my clicking with it.

Without a doubt the best LA-set book I've ever read is Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, which is coincidentally being turned into a movie later this year by PTA. There's your perfect excuse to read it! Another good one is Crash, but that shit is weird and not at all friendly to first time Ballad-ers.

Midnight's Children has been shuffling around my reading queue for ages now. I actually bought it before I got Satanic Verses, and shelved it. I saw it was made into a movie last year, but that's the last I heard of it. That movie got zero attention here in the States, which I thought was odd.

Wolf Hall is on my list, definitely. I'm trying to read all women for the rest of the year. I've been wondering lately why more books I read aren't by women (though some of my favorites are) and I think this Messud book is really highlighting the problem. While I love seeing a different perspective on things,…

It's a fine line, definitely, but I think even that lab technician would like a "thank you" at least. They work hard.

A few months ago I read The Satanic Verses, that's the only Rushdie I've read. It was very good, literary and verbose but not in the Franzen-hyperactive way, which I appreciated. Messud doesn't have much style to her writing, I'd say. She simply writes very well, directly, without being too flowery but not nearly as…

Yeah, I was struck by how tight and perfect it was. Anymore these days I tend to appreciate films that are just so, rather than overly ambitious or a slog. In some ways it's much harder to make a perfectly contained film than it is to make some sprawling ambitious messy thing. Drive was another recent film that fit…

I'm curious to know what you'll think of The Master. In my experience, PTO fans diverge on it. Some say it's a further progression of his extreme and unique vision, and others think he fell of the wagon after getting it all right in There Will Be Blood.

I got through the first season this weekend. Thought it sucked so much I'm not sure I want to do the next. Does it get better?

You're Next was in my top 10 for last year. I'll be curious to hear what you think.

What is everyone reading right now? I just finished The Five Fingers of Death by Rick Moody, which was excellent, and now I'm half-way through The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud, which so far is very well-written and completely unrelatable on any level to me otherwise.

Did you really need to specify throat-punching? We all know where he punched them.

Which works to an extent, I think, but when you start to reveal the veneer of the whole creative endeavor with your deep cuts, it's time to pull back a little. Just like there's a time and place for a hello, there is a time and place for a goodbye in a show. And, honestly (especially on Homeland) I can't tell if…

I cannot express how much this show means to me. So I will not. Goodnight.

I saw that as a stab at TV shows in general. I just recently caught up with season 2 of Homeland and it struck me how, at no point ever, did anyone say goodbye before hanging up. Like, how are you supposed to tell if they hung up or not? It used to be used for dramatic effect, but now it's just a bit ridiculous.

Supertramp - Breakfast in America

That scene reminds me of the psycho cats in Let the Right One In. That movie is so perfect that even that shitty CGI can't ruin it.

You are not wrong.