Books We Need to Read in Trump’s
In light of the inauguration of an American president with a now-indisputable fascist bent, I’ve put together a reading list for a Trump presidency. These books are either lesser-known or…
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…
The Grapes of Wrath and the Journals Behind the Book
The Grapes of Wrath is another one of those American classics that I somehow avoided reading in high school. Getting to read all of these canonical tomes as an adult…
Literary Privilege, MFAs, and that Marxist chip on my Shoulder
Writing is less and less a thing that people can do as a job, and the price of admission is getting higher. With their spreading proliferation, MFAs in Creative Writing…
“Fun Home” and aesthetic cohesion (featuring possibly offensive cartoon breasts and implied cartoon cunnilingus)
I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but I’m certainly glad I picked up Fun Home. It had been on my radar for a while, but I…
Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions”
I’m becoming a big Vonnegut fan, although I came to him a bit later in life than most. This is the fourth one of his novels I’ve read -it’s…
Charles Burns’ “Black Hole”: Pretty Pictures of Disturbing Shit
Another wonderful comic book, published originally in 12 issues and collected together as a graphic novel in 2005. Like David Mazzucchelli (the man behind “Asterios Polyp”) Burns is both the…
Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ and the Inspiration of Aspiration
Full disclosure: A) Lolita is one of my favorite books of all time B) This is a re-read -I have know read Lolita 2.6 times (I started and for some…
Dave Eggers’s “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and another incarnation of my cynical misanthropy
I didn’t like this book. I found it irritating, twee, and everything wrong with the post-Wallace obsession over authenticity. I became irritated multiple times while reading it. This does not…
On Editing
Throughout my undergrad writing experience, “editing” simply meant speed-reading my paper out loud to catch any glaring errors (full disclosure -this is also about all the editing I do for…