The Year 2007

This is hardly a completed act, I imagine I will revise this over the next for days or simply barrage it with comments. It was a curious choice, using "impact" in my solicitation. Much like the latest Radiohead cd, I am not sure what is capable of being impactful in age of illegal wiretapping, celebrity culture and an economic and ecological forecast which is dismal at best.

It is interesting that among the dozen folks who responded to my pathetic criteria there is an appreciable dearth of nonfiction and no verse whatsoever. Such is the company I keep (or contact). Among the nonfiction books noted were Clive James' Cultural Amnesia (odd given how Joel was opposed to my purchasing such), Zachary Leader's biography of Kingsley Amis (which I neglected to finish), In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared, by Christopher Robbins, Tony Judt's Post War, Victoria Glendinning's Leonard Woolf: A Life, Nietzsche by Rüdiger Safranski, and Robert Fisk's Great War For Civilization which becasue of its theme will resonate within myself for some time. There was no duplications on this list and some titles were marginalized and omitted per my caprice. Biography appears a common destination per my peers' habits and I likewise look forward to a few in 2008 whereas 2007 only saw me abandon the Amis as well as one on Albert Speer.

There were only two dramatic representations selected and they auditors of such (choices, not plays) happen to be sisters. Zoo Story by Edward Albee and the Complete plays of Sarah Kaine. I did not read near as many plays in 2007, likely one-fifth of my prodigious 2006 appetite. I did read a few plays by Albee and I remain awed by his panache with dialogue.

Perhaps I will save the fiction quotient for later this evening or tomorrow.