This April I started recording every book that I read. I gave up like a month later.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess:
Burgess’ language is amazing, it stayed in my head days after finishing the book.
A great dystopian novel. I never really thought of it in terms of these novels but having read it: about equal with Fahrenheit 451, better than 1984 and Brave New World. Addressing the last chapter controversy, I think it adds to the story, I don’t want a dystopia without a way out. Plus if you get rid of that chapter you ruin the awesome structure of the novel.

A Jello Horse by Matthew Simmons:
This was the first non-Shane Jones ‘indie lit’ novel I read. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Failure Six it was still great. I read it in one sitting. There is a lot going under the surface, not all of which I picked up on. The book felt like Matthew was giving me a very large and important part of himself to look after, his liver maybe. I emailed him after reading it and he seems like a really nice guy.

Esio Trot by Roald Dahl
I’m a big Dahl fan but this is not his best work. I did love the image of the living room floor covered in tortoises though. I also thought the postscript was really nice. Sadly I don’t think the marriage is destined to last as it is based on lies and manipulation.

Ever by Blake Butler
I think this book would be best read in one sitting. It would have to be a long sitting though. Blake Butler writes in his own language. This book is a tour of a house, a mind, and a world. I think the house and the mind are more interesting than the world, we’ve all seen decay before. I was interested by the gender of the narrator, she was female but didn’t feel very female, maybe reading the book in one sitting would improve this. I loved the bracket structuring technique, they can be paid attention to or not, an option extra layer. Reading this book didn’t inspire me to write, instead it gave me ideas. Every page caused my mind to produce an entirely unrelated image.

A Cake Appeared by Shane Jones
Having read this book I can say that Shane Jones is now my favourite writer. He is one of the very few artists that I don’t think what I want them to do I just enjoy whatever they end up doing. Sasha Fletcher said Shane Jones’ writing made it seem that anything is possible, I agree. Everything is great, especially HairHeadLand, Half Scary, Flooding Poem, and The Nightmare Filled You With Scary. I can’t wait to see what Shane does next.

The Knot by Jo Randerson
This is the type of picture book I want to make. Perfect. It even has a pun in it.

Through The Door by Jo Randerson
Not as good as The Knot, still really good though. I like the multiple The End’s, I might have to steal that sometime. Plus it has angels in it which always helps. I think I might have to buy Jo’s two other books.

Say, Poem by Adam Robinson
Not only does Adam publish sweet books (Light Boxes, A Jello Horse), he writes them too. The book is made up of two long poems: Say, Poem and Say, Joke, both of which are aware of poetry as performance. The meta-structure in Say, Poem (the poem not the book) is awesome. I like it even more than the poems is contains, which isn’t a slight to the poems because Journal Poem, Say Prayer, and The Cubicle Wall are all great. Say, Joke is also fantastic, its “failed jokes” as Adam describes them are much funnier than most successful jokes I’ve heard. Awesome.

Creation Stories by Matthew Simmons
Matthew Simmons rocks my world. He, like Shane Jones, is one of the writers I’ve discovered this year who have quickly taken places among my favourites. Matthew manages to be fantastically surreal and honest at the same time, plus he’s a really nice guy. Creation Stories is available as a free PDF [here]. Download it. If ‘Two Things That Aren’t Covered by Your Friend with Benefits’ doesn’t make you laugh I wont know what to think.

Inconceivable Wilson by J.A. Tyler


Ghost Machine by Ben Mirov


Bird Any Damn Kind by Lucas Farrell


Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler


Breakwater by Kate Duignan
This isn’t the sort of book I’d usually seek out to read but Kate taught the short fiction workshop I took in the first half of the year. Luckily I enjoyed the book, although the content wasn’t what I usually choose to read about I could relate to it and it was very well written. I’m on the look out for more work by her.

One Was Johnny by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak is a genius, The Night Kitchen is one of my favourite picture books. But he didn’t manage to sell me on his counting book. Too formulaic. I’m not going to co-sign a counting book unless it does something different.

The Keys To Hell by Jo Randerson


The Spit Children by Jo Randerson


Cure All by Kim Parko