I finished reading E. M. Forster's A Room With A View last week, it's a good book, certainly worth a read and a pleasant length. Right now I'm working my way through a series of short stories in a book called Pure Slaughter Value, and they are thrillingly good. They're between 10-15 pages long and full of the sort of middle-class nihilst attitudes and broken relationships that float my boat up to heaven and back. It's written by Robert Bingham, who died of a heroine OD back in 1999. He was just 33 years old and seemed to have lead a busy and, frankly, constructive life which is surprising to hear ended like that. Anyway it's well worth a read, I'd recommend it to anyone. He was also good friends with Steven Malkmus and DC Berman, two of my favourite musicians, and you can feel the pulsing vibe of music running through his stories.
