Status Updates From The Penguin Book of Oulipo:...

Perec's "The Winter Journey" is a false history of a false book, along the lines of Borges. It is masterfully written, and "recounts" the discovery of a book (entitled The Winter Journey), which contains the poetic and prose writings of an extremely obscure author whose work was plagiarized by practically every poet and some novelists from the symbolist era through the fin-de-siecle. Just a marvelous story.

Harry Mathews' "Their Words, For You" is a kaleidoscopic mishmash of aphorisms, proverbs, and just plain trite sayings. It's a mess. It's fascinating. I don't understand it; yet I am enamored of it, like an addictive fictional hard drug. More than anything, I want to know how he put it together. It's an ostentatious feat, bold and even provocative. I am impressed.

some of the entries are brilliant, some are tedious, some are both.

The re-telling of Poe's "The Raven" may be one of the best feats of literary homage I have ever, ever read. Amazing. Just stunning. I read it out loud to my wife (something which I don't do very often).

The intro alone is worth the price of the book.