All I can say is TMI on Steve Jobs. Yes, he’s an interesting character…but I didn’t realize that he’d appear on every other page of this memoir. Next time, a book more about actual small fry or French fries or who Lisa Brennan Jobs is without her dad.
The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, a fantastic counterpoint to Asymmetry, by Lisa Halliday. Both in 3 parts. Both about the process of writing, dialogs/beefs/paeans to other writers, and both set in a variety of locales. While Bolaño is, at times, coarse & tedious in a young man’s voice (sex, drugs, profanity), and at other times very funny (a woman who spends the takeover of the University of Mexico in a bathroom stall, the story of which goes viral in pre-internet terms). I suppose I was also partial to the book as the characters are traveling (escaping) around the world in the 1970s (mainly), when I was also visiting some of the same locales. And Bolaño does a great job bringing Mexico City to life. So much so, that I’m ready to go again. Maybe some day my Spanish will be good enough to read The Savage Detectives in Bolaño’s language. I’m sure that would be an incredible treat.