I’m a bit surprised at the book reviews of Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” — everybody’s handling it with kid gloves. Towards the end of say, the LA Times and NY Times reviews, there’s a few lines of condescension, but as though they had been slipped in. The B&N Review by Sarah Weinman spends most […]
I’m back! And alive and kicking. Thanks for all the kind emails. So the Man Booker Shortlist was announced. A S Byatt — “The Children’s Book” J M Coetzee — “Summertime” Adam Foulds — “The Quickening Maze” Hilary Mantel — “Wolf Hall” Simon Mawer — “The Glass Room” Sarah Waters — “The Little Stranger” And […]
So my appendix all acted up on me rather suddenly, and I’m sprawled out over various couches and beds in my apartment, recovering from some small incisions round about my bellybutton that don’t feel too small. Guess what? Morphine + Vicodin make hashwork of Marianne Wiggins and Wendell Berry. My eyes glazed over after a […]
Below: a quote-and-reply format with the Lev Grossman article in the Wall Street Journal, in which I quibble with most of his assertions. “Some of which has to do with the book business itself—sales of adult trade books declined 2.3% last year, compared with 2007. Should we still be writing difficult novels? Isn’t it time […]
Okay, so the new craze sweeping the teaching profession is to let students pick their own reading material. Oi vey. As a professor, I already get enough students who have sub-par reading skills — I really don’t want to see more. I also see too many (college-educated) adult friends of mine who read virtually nothing […]
Thanks to Conversational Reading for pointing me towards this article in the Columbia Journalism Review comparing the value of Online and Print readers of newspapers. Annual Worth of a Print Reader to a newspaper: $940 Annual Worth of a Online Reader to a newspaper: $46 As Ryan Chittum points out, “That means a print subscriber […]
“Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity.” – Vladimir Nabokov I’ve been playing chess seriously for more than a decade, since my graduate school days in New York City, when I first lost money to the hustlers in Washington Square […]
Every time writers begin moaning about publisher's repudiation of the short story form, someone trots out a seemingly common sense argument: that our shortened attention span, created by electronic devices of all ilks, should make reader seek short stories more, not less. The argument goes that short stories can be read in one sitting, in […]
Here’s a roundup of some of the reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, “Inherent Vice,” which starts selling on August 4th. Of course, if you’re truly a devoted fan, you can find the midnight parties on the 3rd (hello, Skylight! I’d be there if I wasn’t flying out of state the night before!) Salon Review: […]
Electric Literature presents Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” (trailer) from Editors Electric Literature on Vimeo. Now even short stories are getting their own trailers. The folks at Electric Literature have created this animated video trailer from Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurdles Down At You,” which was published in the first issue of […]
