gayo linge

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It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the sign in music scores, as seen on the cover, indicating "a pause of unspecified length on a note or rest".What he does with

Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or too late, or not at all; unless, of course, not yet. Untimely medications. Of the first, Robert Pinget's Be Brave applies. Again, lightness rather than heaviness, when there was hope, the illusion thereof. All too early.Pinget was a friend of Beckett's who, in their correspondence, told him "

Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism because it was the polar opposite to the guidebook on the syllabus, which we had to buy for an excruciating

I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld (Our Philosopher in the US edition), but not his short stories. In the year Hofmann died aged only 62, I bought and read Balzac's Horse and other stories in the wonderful Minerva paperback imprint. They confused and disappointed me. Later, I lost the book along with many others. On a whim last year I searched for a

Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my attention, poetry should do too. Under this assumption I bought and read Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems in this chunky Faber edition, adding an ugly plastic cover.*Many of Stevens' lines still go around my head like song lyrics – slogans from an inert revolution – and there are many I reread in