SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET-Okonokos (2006). 
[READ: Summer 2006] Lapham Rising.
An inauspicious start to this list, perhaps? This is the first book I journalled in my “books I read” notebook. This was read in Summer 2006, when I had a different job, and a delightful little lunch place to sit by the river and read.
To begin: this book was very short. I remember that distinctly because, as you will see, I tend to read longer books. It was described as funny, and so it was. It focused on a man who owned an island in one of those New Englandy vacation areas. His property was in high demand, and so was he, invited to do author lectures and whatnot. The book was largely about his disintegration into what would surely be madness, if he didn’t already admit to his lunacy. He talked a lot to his dog, and gave the dog human character traits which was very amusing. I laughed a few times, which is good.
[UPDATE: July 9, 2007] This review was woefully short. I want to add that the ending of the book was quite memorable, and the images of the disintegration of the character both physically and mentally still stick with me. In rethinking, the conversations and anthropomorphizing of his dog were all very funny. So, maybe this isn’t as inauspicious as I feared.
EXPOSITION: As these reviews get closer to the present I hope they’ll be more thorough, but then that’s the point of this isn’t it? Or, is the point to see which books were memorable enough to write about nine or ten months later? You be the judge.
I Just Read About That... 