The Little Prince and Reading Children’s Books as an Adult
I read The Little Prince for the first time this week. It’s an amazing book for children and I’m sure re-reading it as an adult is magical, but there’s…
Reading Log: John Darnielle’s Master of Reality (A 33⅓ Book)
I received three books from Bloomsbury's 33⅓ series for Christmas, and since Master of Reality is the only other published book written by extraordinary human being John Darnielle, it…
Reading Log: Raymond Carver’s A New Path to the Waterfall
When Raymond Carver was diagnosed with terminal Stage IV lung cancer, he kept on being Raymond Carver. He kept writing and he kept reading, finding some comfort or meaning in…
Reading Log: The Unbearable Lightness of Being -Milan Kundera
Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera is a man of ideas. His essay Testaments Betrayed (an essay in 9 parts, weighing in at 280 pages) is the most conceptually dense piece of…
Reading Log: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -Tom Stoppard
I’ve seen far too few plays. Part of this has to do with where I live. I tend to default to reading them due to a lack of reasonable alternatives.…
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
A high school class I was covering for a few days was reading this. I took a look at it after playing them a chapter of the audiobook. The voice…
John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist
I’m generally extremely shy about craft-based books on writing. I have yet to read Stephen King’s On Writing, and ever Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer was picked up rather…
Camus’s “The Stranger” and novels as masks for ideology
Camus’s “The Stranger” is a short and easy read, but there’s plenty to ponder. Considered purely as a novel it’s mediocre at best, but it’s a philosophical text wearing fiction…
Steinbeck, The Pearl, and another rant on the internet about YA lit
The Pearl is a wonderful little novella that is easily devoured in an afternoon. The prose is simple and reads quickly, but surprises with vivid and powerful metaphors. It’s a…
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs -Chuck Klosterman
This collection of essays produced a magical juxtaposition in my mind where I was both entertained by Klosterman’s cleverness and really wanted to punch him right in the goddamn face.…