I finished a couple books recently, and there are a others from several months ago that I forgot to post last time. I'm not all that up to saying that much about these right now, so as usual I'll add more thoughts as/if I feel the need.
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. Slightly more accessible novel than The Crying of Lot 49, about 1960's L.A., though still featuring Pynchon's familiar predilection for semi-obscure pop culture references and tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theories. Not a super-deep book or anything but it has a lot of humor.
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. Famous novel about a doomed romance, where the setting and nostalgic fondness for western Japan takes precedence over plot and character. I have to say it didn't do a whole lot for me, but it's a short, easy read.
The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso. Extremely perverse and involuted Latin American novel from Donoso, a Chilean author. There's a very good description of the nonsensical-plot of the book
here. It's my favorite of the books in this set, though I actually finished it a while ago.
All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe. Hard-boiled mystery about identity theft. Compelling mix of information-heavy polemic (about Japan's Credit system) and gossipy intrigue.
Out by Natsuo Kirino. Another decent hard-boiled novel by a Japanese woman. Much darker and more pessimistic than All She Was Worth. It's about a group of women who basically conspire to cover up up the murder of one of their husbands by his wife.
Several short stories by Banana Yoshimoto. Pretty good, I want to read more.
And a couple of months ago I dug up an old article from (the November 16, 1992 issue of) the New Yorker by Fredric Dannen:
Revenge of the Green Dragons. It's a 50 page expose of a murderous youth gang that operated in Flushing, Queens (the lesser known, but possibly bigger Chinatown of New York). I'm still in the middle of Dannen's Hong Kong Babylon (a guide to Hong Kong cinema with a really great essay about the links between organized crime and the industry as its centerpiece) which is what turned me onto this. I just
read that apparently Andrew Lau is directing a film adaptation of the 1992 New Yorker article, possibly to be produced by
Martin Scorsese.
Next I'm probably going to finish several non-fiction books that I've been reading for a couple months.