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…
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…
Another Straight White Guy Writer-type in New York featuring Cocaine, or Bright Lights, Big City
Jay McInerney’s 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City has a lot stacked against it. It’s not only a very “New York” story, it’s about a sensitive and artistic yet somehow…
A Wizard of Earthsea, and why books for young people don’t have to be shit
After a few lukewarm readings of her short stories, I hadn't really bothered with Le Guin for a few years, but I'm trying to rectify that. The Lathe of Heaven…
Coin Locker Babies by Ryū Murakami
Ryū Murakami’s novel Coin Locker Babies was published in 1980, a fact that surprised me when I learned it just a few moments ago. It is certainly not timestamped -I…
A Book of Uncommon Prayer
Reading Log favorite Matthew Vollmer edited this particular anthology, an artifact that began as a personal writing project and expanded to include the work of many writers. Everything in here…
Dostoyevsky, The Gambler, and all the Big Important Russian Novels
I still have not read any of the Russian behemoths, but my experiences with the novellas of Tolstoy and now Dostoyevsky are making that a rather untenable position. The Gambler…
Flooded Announcment
I recently came across an editor and writer who is in the process of putting together an anthology that I find particularly interesting. Flooded will deal specifically with brain injury…
Susan Sontag’s Alice in a Bed
Alice in Bed is a wonderful concept play, a fantastic idea written deftly. A fantastic off-jumping from the real biographical details of Henry and William James’ sister, the play is…