Friday Five

It's time once again for the Friday Five! As I stated last time, points of no actual value will be awarded to any who have actually read any of the books listed.

- Don Marquis' The Annotated Archie and Mehitabel. This was a well known part of Don Marquis' legendary newspaper column in the 20s. Archie who is a freeverse poet in the body of a cockroach, and Mehitabel the cat who was Cleopatra in a past life, find their way to Don Marquis' typewriter when he leaves the office at night, making strange and intriguing additions to his column. Archie the cockroach is one of the greats.

- Sara Bader's Strange Red Cow. This book managed to very effectively travel under the radar, and deserved more attention. Bader researched historical classified ads, and uses them to give an interesting view of early American life. More interesting than it sounds, and it sounds pretty darn interesting, at least to me. But then, I've also read a book devoted to the history of Obituaries.

- Upton Sinclair's Worlds End. That's right, it's not The Jungle! He wrote other books! It's even likely that, with the success of the movie There Will Be Blood, based on his novel Oil!, that publishers will start to release more of his back catalogue. World's End is the first book in Sinclair's epic series of historical novels following Lanville 'Lanny' Budd, and his travels through Europe. Lanny is the son of an American arms dealer, and he ends up closely connected with many of the major events leading up to and following the First Wold War. It's fascinating for both the detail of it's history and Sinclair's very complicated take on the war.

- Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. I'm cheating here. I'm recommending a book that I haven't finished yet. I'm about half-way through. This is a phenomenal book, written in 1958, it has apparently been one of those books that gets forgotten and rediscovered with some frequency. It's the story of an American girl abroad in Paris, and it deals with the insular society of young American ex-pats living in France. Sally Gorce gets mixed up with many different strange characters, and they're all well-rounded and hilarious.

- Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. This is one of my favorite SF books. A new planet is colonized with a world run by the people who held onto the technology, for a large population of people with no access to it. They have modeled their world's culture on the Hindo religion, which they have warped in order to maintain their control of the society. One of their number rebels and seeks to restore equality, he does so by creating a rebellious religion based on Buddhism. Cunning, thoughtful and really enjoyable, it also contains one of the most gratuitous puns of all time, set up over the course of about 10 pages, and with absolutely no warning at all that it is coming.

And that's the Friday Five! What books do you think I should read?

Have a great weekend!