Revising Prose, Carlin, Euphemism and the Official Style
Richard Lanham’s book Revising Prose -now in its fourth edition- has the worst cover of any book I’ve read this year. Something about living in academia goes hand-in-hands with horrible…
Cowboy Bebop
I promise, I promise: the next post will be about a book. I’ve never cared for anime. I ate lunch with a bunch of IT/CompSci guys during my first year…
Read this
Candide's Garden: A Parable Great, very short story by Helen DeWitt in the Fall issue of Dissent: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/candides-garden-a-parable
Physical Fitness
I recognize that this may seem a bit off topic, but bear with me. It’s been my experience that most creative people (writers, musicians, visual artist, etc.) rarely have a…
Writing, Word Counts, NaNoWriMo and Productivity
First off, I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I have no problems with it, but it’s not for me, or in line with what I’m trying to…
Used book haul
My latest haul from Bookhounds, all between 0.75 and 1.99. Some gifts, some for me, including a back issue of The Paris Review with some interesting short stories and nonfiction.
Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors: a semi-cantankerous review
I was really disappointed by this book. Granted, I read it immediately following The Pugilist at Rest, and I feel like anything I read next would have seemed a bit…
Milan Kundera’s Testaments Betrayed
This was probably the most intellectually challenging book I’ve read all year. Translated from the French, it's a massive essay on a broad range of topics including but not limited…
Thom Jones’s The Pugilist at Rest
This is my favorite book of the year, bar none. A few authors have left me disturbed after reading (Carver, Tobias Wolfe, John Darnielle) but Thom Jones literally brought tears…
Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
I love short story collections. Whenever possible, I try to read a story (or a collection) by any given author before I take on one of their novels. The unique…