I read the paperback edition that's divided into three books in a handy cardboard case so it was natural for me to think of it as one novel in three books. The story is also structured that you can take a break between books. Each one, particularly the second, functions like a separate entity.

I finally finished Jerusalem by Alan Moore this month. The novel's structure - each chapter focuses on a different character - tends to eliminate any sense of momentum in the overall story. For the most part, there are so many great passages and compelling chapters that this doesn't matter. But by the time I hit…

The Big Book of Plays is invaluable for figuring out what's going on in those first four records. Considering how oblique those records can seem, the four or five crazy guys were alway fairly upfront about what they were trying to say.

I think it's great and was interested from the beginning but if it's not working for you yet, you might want to reconsider.

I felt like it was a parody of Ben Affleck, given that he looks like Affleck in Argo, has a faux Boston accent, etc.

Where are you in the Crowley series?

Clayton Purdom for the win. He captures what makes O'Connor such a unique writer.

I had the opposite experience with Vonnegut. Loved him when I read him as a young'un, but could not connect when I tried to re-read his work as an adult. The cutesiness of the "voice" with which he tells his stories got on my nerves.

No, not yet. Someday, but after Jerusalem.

It might be a while. I'm a slow reader and easily distracted by other media. Have you read it?

Just finished Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. I think Alan Moore's Jerusalem is next, as soon as I finish The Source, an oral history of a religious cult in the late 60's / early 70's.

Me too. It reminds me of some of my friends who didn't make it.

The afterword to that novel is one of the most heartbreaking things PKD wrote.

For those in the NYC area, Celine and Julie is playing at Anthology Film Archives on November 12th and 20th.

Of course. I should definitely read some Roddy Doyle before I go. I have a copy of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha I've never cracked.

I'm going to Ireland in a couple of months so I've been reading a guidebook to help plan my trip. I recently bought new bookshelves and was able to get books that had been sitting in stacks off the floor and onto the shelves. In the process, I rediscovered that I owned a number of things I had completely forgotten…

Yes, if you watch them in order in a short period of time, #10 comes as quite a (comic) relief after all the somber drama. The punk song at the beginning lets you know that KK had a good sense of humor and the episode will be a little lighter.

Counterpoint: the first is probably the best. Perfectly captures the mounting panic every parent has felt when their child is missing and they keep going back and forth between assuming the worst and assuming nothing is wrong. What you might think as obvious strikes me as an almost minimalist approach to story,…

Always glad to see someone reading John Crowley, particularly Little, Big.

You can't afford NOT to be entertained!