The Lonely Pony Longlist

But they could be!

I made them up as an extension to a one-sided bit I’ve been doing with Connor. The bit goes like this:

Me: “My newest book — Henri & A Ship Like Me — is about a budding gay romance between two professional rowers, from the perspective of the boat :)”

And then Connor puts his headphones on and pretends not to know me.

This bit was borne out of the Booker Prize long-list announcement, which released about two weeks ago to the delight of every nerd and bibliomaniac in the English-speaking world. It’s always fascinating to see what talented people ponder on all day long, and even more fascinating what they commit some 50,000 words to.

I love authors, but we are also the most insufferable people on earth. We take ourselves so seriously — and, you know, I suppose a little self-importance is more than welcome in a world that insists on its own solipsistic silliness.

That being said, I made up some book titles and back-jacket synopses in the spirit of fun and 𝔀𝓱𝓲𝓶𝓼𝔂. Maybe they’ll jostle something loose in your self-critiquing brain, spark a spark of a thing. Or maybe they’re just stupid. Can something be both? Our first title certainly suggests so.

Cubezy is an awarded professor of geology, now suffering from amnesia brought on by an exceedingly rare prion disease. As such, he begins to rely on his underpaid TA to manage the logistics of his very busy life: Book signings, prostate exams, prim potlucks, et all. Things stumble along well enough until Cubezy discovers that his TA might be stealing unpublished work from his vault, and passing it off as their own. Furthering this isolation, Cubezy starts to get the sense that people prefer this feeble and aloof version of himself. Had he been an unchecked dirtbag in his pre-diagnosis life? He sets out to recollect who he was before, and why people are so full of contempt for that old chap. In doing so, he discovers all that he stands to lose as his mind drifts farther and farther into oblivion.

He also refuses to pay the TA a livable wage all the way to the bitter end.

USBs.

Silverback gorillas.

Horoscopes.

These are just some examples of things that are not human, but could be, if you think about it long enough.

This sweeping account of the places, things, and concepts that human beings plaster their likenesses onto in hopes of beckoning divine intervention, celestial companionship, a loving overlord — or all of the above — will leave you breathless, dizzy, and aggravated. Sandra Boulecki’s account offers an encyclopedic breakdown of the process of bonding with things that are not human. Is this receipt actually my friend? Is my big computer politically aligned with the GPS? Is this credit card committed to eco-terrorism?

Pamela Anderson calls it “the most confusing book” she’s ever received in a PR package.

A devilishly handsome chef makes food out of people who commit medically-induced suicide. He gathers their abandoned bodies by night, feeds them to the willing masses by day. The media hates him. A religious group is plotting against him. But adventurous foodies, online influencers hungry for a follow, and Anthony Bourdain fans follow his Corpse Truck around the continent, slurping up every juicy thing the enigmatic man dishes out. This novel roars the question: What feeds us? And who feeds the feeder?

Two marine biologists fall madly in love across every watery lifetime: As coral and zooxanthellae. Goby fish and pistol shrimp. Clownfish and anemone. This book takes the cliche I feel like I’ve always known you and adds a scientific spin. It also grapples with the climate crisis, but in a digestible, hardly noticeable way. A Tubi-sponsored film adaptation is currently in the works, starring Natasha Lyonne, Greta Lee, and Andy Serkis (as the shrimp).

What if the taint were to blame for all those weird aches, pains, and twitches across the body? This forensic investigation of the ever-elusive body part — written by discredited former-obstetrician and current rock DJ Henrik Lipshank — posits that the taint is the originator of all bodily malfunction, from cancer-causing inflammation to creaky elbows. By removing it, lifespans could stretch well into the 500s. Joe Rogan bought three copies and called it “the real thing”.

A Chinese-Canadian magician makes her mother disappear during her debut act. The only trick that can follow such a show? Bringing her back.

A peasant soap-maker is brought to the royal palace to serve as a jester for the prince, a terribly spoiled and tasteless little man (he’s never even HEARD of Chopin!). Unknown to the prince or his royal vizier, the soap-maker is an underground anarchist hellbent on toppling the upper-class. (Watching your family starve will do that to you.) So she takes it upon herself to seek vengeful justice. Assisted by the house servants and her coterie of mustachioed lovers, she poisons the royal family one by mad one, until the ailing country is all but leaderless.

This book has already been banned in twenty states.

A 7,000-page volume interlinking Pace University’s hosting of the lauded Inside the Actor’s Studio, haunted health clinics, and James Marsden’s involvement in Brian Peck’s criminal trial.

A woman with no eyes is tasked with building the world’s last pyramid in preparation for a mass exodus of the European continent. She completes the task, but is remiss to learn that locals — namely, the laborers — will not be allowed inside. She is forced to either reconcile these class differences or rebel. Violently. Written by the same woman who wrote A Little Salt For the Prince?, this expertly constructed novel clips with the speed of a knife diving into a fleshy neck.

On a separate note: Has anybody checked on this author? We have not heard from her in six weeks. Someone call a welfare check.

Ramsey and Tatum hate each other. So much. He’s in love with his boss; she doesn’t love anyone. But they won’t get a divorce, not now. Now, they own a lucrative vineyard in the Italian hills — a purchase fueled in equal measure by Ramsey’s inheritance and Tatum’s successful line of luxury toilets. Rather than part ways and lose the property, the two vote to take turns living on the grounds independently, leaving each other tokens of remembrance and annoyance through the remaining thirty years of their lives. The Thing I Said Before You Left the Room is an imaginative exploration of marital dysfunction, stubbornness, and greed, as well as the Italian real estate market.

A man washes up on an island 3,000 years in the past. He has every recollection of his previous life — the commune, the unfulfilling career as a part-time bassoonist — but no memory of how he ended up here, on the coast of mythologized Ithaca. Luckily, the daughter of a wealthy merchant takes a swift liking to him. He forms a new life herding lambs and slaughtering prisoners of war on behalf of the king. He takes a liking to this world, and to the work. (He was never able to get away with murder back in Vancouver!)

Then, on the night of his proposal to the merchant’s daughter, he is abruptly sent back to his previous life. Remus St. Remus reveals the doppelganger-esque nature of life, time, and love. It makes solid a very particular form of grief: The one we feel as we watch the many lives we could have lived had things been so slightly different wither away until we — polyamorous, ordinary, bassoon-y we — are all that’s left.

A ranch-hand narrowly escapes a bloody assault on the hacienda that leaves her former home burnt to ash. Thirsty for freedom, she embarks on the desert trail, seeking the perpetrators of this vicious crime. Along the way, she befriends a bandit, a vampire, six horses, and the ghost of a goat-herder. Together, the unlikely fellowship sets out to topple the organized cruelty haunting their land. Ponies, Ponies Everywhere has been called “like Lord of the Rings, but with more horses, less charm, and no cohesion” by The Guardian. It was also written by that author we mentioned before HAS ANYBODY SEEN THIS WOMAN PLEASE SHE IS ARMED AND TOOTHY?!?!

A man falls in love with his girlfriend’s dog.

If you somehow make anything out of these, feel free to shout me out on your website and also pay me handsomely.