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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Saturday, December 22, 2007

The Pugilist at Rest

Behind on my book blogging again, so this'll be another short post. Book #48 on my reading list this year was Washington's own Thom Jones' The Pugilist at Rest.

Kicking off with the O. Henry award winning and spectacular titular story, The Pugilist is an impressive collection of gritty short stories that delve into the likes of war, boxing, philosophy and madness. I'll definitely be reading more of Jones' works, and if it stacks up at all next to this one he's sure to join my short list of favorite authors soon.

'Take a decidedly grim world-view, add a dose of existential slapstick, some Schopenhauer, an encyclopedic knowledge of pharmaceuticals, and a soundtrack by the Doors, and you have what may be the darkest, funniest, most urgent fictional debut in years." --Mary Park

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