More Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

 This book collects further columns by Bukowski that he published in various underground newspapers, mostly Open City and LA Free Press.  Unlike the first "Notes" volume, this volume collects columns from the later life of Bukowski, after he already became famous, but he still published in underground newspapers, to honor where he came from and the decades he lived as a bum, a skid-row nobody.  

There are less autobiographical stories/columns from his early years, as he already used that material for his "Ham and Rye" and "Factotum", but there are stories and columns, especially the last one in the book, that will form the basis of parts of his later novel "Hollywood."  The cheap philosophy columns are also largely absent, as by this time Bukowski is already in his late 50s and early 60s, so he has no need of the angry philosophical lashing at the world and society, but is getting ready for his late years and his eventual departure from life.  He is more mellow and less angry than in previous columns.

I liked most his column where he talks about people diminishing him.  He talks about his liking solitude and being alone, and that when he is around people, in crowds, he talks about how being around people makes him feel diminished.  This is not to be interpreted as him being an extreme introvert, as Bukowski could be an extrovert with the best of them, but that he prefers solitude to being around people.  He says that men especially diminish him and he doesn't like hanging out with men, while women have their uses (i.e. fucking them). 

There are some stories that are developed in other places, especially the one with Robert, the ex-con, who knocks people's cars out of the highway and rapes a girl, which could be an exaggeration of another similar story in his novel "Hollywood."  Of course, there are entire stories dedicated to horse races, which are probably the most boring parts of the book, unless you're into horse races and gambling (not me).  Not too many stories here about various women, as in his later life Bukowski was settling down from his whore-chasing, and eventually married his wife who stayed with him until the end of his life, when he died of leukemia.  He says in various stories that he had sex with 2,000 or 2,500 women over the course of his life, but he immediately becomes humble and admits that most of them were whores, fat and ugly.  His longtime friend and directory of "Barfly" said that he wouldn't be inclined to sleep with any of the women he saw Bukowski gallivanting with.

This one, and the previous "Notes" volume, are good books to read after one has finished his novels (minus "Pulp", which is garbage), to see where the polished material in the novels originated from, just like reading Raymond Chandler's short stories, after reading his novels.