Just Kids, Patti Smith
Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids is touching and well-written. The account of her life with the visual artist Robert Mapplethorpe is a glimpse into a very isolated and very culturally…
Sarah Vowell’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Given recent electoral outcomes, reading essays about American political history probably doesn’t sound particularly appealing, but I found going into This American Life regular Sarah Vowell’s back catalog to be…
Blood Meridian
I read Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian about a month ago, and then went back and listened to the audiobook -the Richard Poe/Recorded Books 2007 version. This was definitely a very…
Emma Straub’s Other People We Married
Emma Straub is best known for her novels, but I came to her by way of this short story collection, as is my preference with new-to-me authors that I’ve discovered…
Consider the Lobster. Please Start Here.
The essays in Consider the Lobster span around thirteen years, and offer thought on the adult film industry celebrating itself, the 2000 primary campaign of John McCain, the sad decline…
Kenzaburō Ōe: Hiroshima Notes
Kenzaburō Ōe published these essays over a short span during and after the twentieth anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. This is not pleasant reading, and if you…
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
David Foster Wallace is best known for Infinite Jest, but secondarily for his magazine and nonfiction writing. This collection of short stories is neither but is certainly worth the read, especially…
Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground represents my transition from the novellas and stories of the heavy-hitter Russians to their longer and more involved work. The first section of Notes is a rebellion…
Mishka Shubaly’s “Beat the Devil” and Amazon Singles
Mishka Shubaly seems to do a bunch of diverse shit. I’d heard him on a podcast a few times before hearing about his whole relationship with Amazon.com as a popular…
Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America
Lorrie Moore is good at writing short stories. This surprises no one, I assume. I had read one or two of her stories in anthologies, but never took the time…