My Burden

It is time for the Euros, that's the European Championships. I've been enthralled with all six matches so far. It may sound masochistic as Joel has selected The Man Without Qualities as  our summer read on samizdat. preparing for this, I devoured four books last week: Bolano's Skating Rink, Sebald's book of micropoems Unrecounted, James Ellroy's White Jazz and the late Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I enjoyed all of them immensely, especially the latter two. Mr. Ellroy is wicked strange, successful in burning the dross off of narrative. I thought  White Jazz suffered when the plot went gonzo towards the end, but Bradbury was masterful in tone and pace,  even if his novel offered few surprises, especially given that I have loved the film adaptation for years.