> pulp was his last book and its terrible.

Ken Layne liked Hollywood, but also recommends books I haven't read yet.

If you like that one ("Pulp"), try "Women," "Hollywood" & "Post Office." They're all great, and he makes the writing seem easy, tossed off, but they're really well crafted.

As for poetry, "Love is a Dog" is not from the '80s as Pierce recommends. It is from 1977. I'm about 30 poems into it and they all seem to be about who Bukowski was fucking or drinking with on any particular day. Not all the poems are wonderful. Few of the poems seem like poems at all. Many are just observations — observations wonderfully drawn, but not so well done they are worth repeating.

But I bought the book because I loved the opening poem, Sandra. I loved this stanza most of all:

Sandra leans out of
her chair
leans toward
Glendale

Ask me why I love that line so much, and I'm not sure I can tell you. I think it is like a good joke, where the ending is a twist, a surprise, unexpected, but strangly logical. Who would think of somebody leaning toward Glendale? But can a telling detail get more specific?

Bukowski is my new drug. I won't stop until there is no more Bukowski to read, and then I may start from the beginning again.