What I'm reading these days:

O.E. Rolvaag's GIANTS IN THE EARTH.  Again.  Because I got back last week from Sioux Falls, SD, where I met H. who is in her 80s and grew up on a ranch near there and her grandparents settled there from Norway, and she had such terrific stories that I thought, not only have I seen the movie ("A Thousand Acres," except H's story was nowhere quite so bleak plus there were three thousand acres she and her sisters ended up selling) but I knew I'd also read this somewhere.  And on the drive back to Northfield Minnesota near Minneapolis where I was visiting my hosts, N and C, I remembered Rolvaag, and not only did C kindly give me a copy to read on the plane ride back, but he drove me by Rolvaag's house on the way to the airport.  Apparently O.E.'s grandson(s?) teach at St. Olaf's.

John Glasco, MEMOIRS OF MONTPARNASSE. [NYRB classic].  Brilliant telling of a young man's time in Paris in the 20s, "a delicious book about being young, restless, reckless, and without cares."  From an affluent family in Montreal, he took off to Paris with a buddy at the age of 19 in 1928.  Published in 1970 as an authentic memoir, it's now been discovered to be much more a work of fiction, and no less truthful or entertaining for it.

Lynda Barry, CRUDDY, AN ILLUSTRATED NOVEL.  Simon and Schuster, 1999.  Highly recommended by T and X in Montreal and so horrific and hilarious (to paraphrase a reviewer) I couldn't put it down.  T thinks Barry is not more widely known because she hangs with the comic book crowd and the literati ignore her.  I don't know if that's true.  I thought it was fucking genius, and I laughed out loud reading it on the plane to Minneapolis.  And BTW, since it's illustrated and might be misconstrued as a children's book, I would recommend you Not read it around parents of young children, as you come off seeming like a scary pedophile.  That might just be my experience, not yours, though, but FYI.