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…
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…
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…
Speedboat
Speedboat is a tough book to write about. It’s been written about quite a bit of late -the recent attention drawn by the novel, long out of print, making it…
Reading Log: Asterios Polyp and the Literary Merits of Graphic Novels
I’m a big fan of graphic novels; one the the projects I’m working on right now is a collaborative effort that extends into visual narrative. I enjoy comic books (check…
(Aborted) Reading Log: Gone Girl and Why I Need to Give Up on Reading Books That David Fincher Makes Into Movies.
I gave up eighty pages in and skimmed the rest for plot (I always try to make it at least 50 pages in good faith with any novel-length reading endeavor).…