The Books I Have Read in the Year of Our Lord 2021: A Thread...

1. A BORROWED MAN by Gene Wolfe - Describing this as an SF novel, a noir, and a deadpan comedy all at once won't quite get across how odd it is. It occasionally sags, sometimes considerably, but begins and ends very well.

2. LIKE A VELVET GLOVE CAST IN IRON by Daniel Clowes - It sure is weird, all right.

3. THE PENITENT by Isaac Bashevis Singer - There is much that I admire and even envy about Joseph Shapiro, the title figure of this deeply religious novella. There is also much that pushes -- even shoves -- me away. In any case, per the author's note, Singer is not Shapiro.

4. THE TOOTH FAIRY by Graham Joyce - Well, I liked this more than the other Joyce novel I read, but that's not saying a hell of a lot.

5. THE HOUR OF THE STAR by Clarice Lispector - A novel that constantly reminds you that you're reading an invention without ever diminishing the intense emotional impact. "So let those who read me get punched in the stomach to see if it's good."

6. VICTOR HALFWIT by Thomas Bernhard - Took a break from a novel I was reading to read this short fable by Bernhard that was turned into a massive art book by Sunandini Banerjee and Seagull Press. Banerjee's strange and disturbing collages fit Bernhard like a glove.

7. THE FIFTH HEAD OF CEREBRUS by Gene Wolfe- Interstellar travel, anthropology, cloning, evolution, colonialism, myth, Kafka-esque totalitarianism & more all factor into these 3 linked novellas, whose surface stories hide the main story Wolfe is telling. Challenging.

*cerberus. goddamnit.