Third Lesson
I don't have any important memories. I have a bunch of stupid memories.
Books on Books
The Anxiety of Influence, Harold BloomAxel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930, Edmund WilsonThe Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature, Edmund Wilson I've been taking a break from primary sources to enjoy three excellent books on books. The first is Harold Bloom's seminal Anxiety of Influence, by the blustery, brilliant, …
Haunted
Getting an early jump on Halloween, I decided to read Chuck Palahniuk's infamous new novel, Haunted, in which writers trapped at an isolated retreat tell their dark and horrific stories, all the while sabotaging their own rescue in hopes of creating a story dramatic enough to get them books and made-for-TV movies about the ordeal. …
The Crusades
I just finished reading two books for a review - The First Crusade: A New History, by Thomas Asbridge; and The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, by Jonathan Phillips. I highly recommend both - and in fact, I recommend reading both back-to-back. The First Crusade was, from the point of view of the …
Life: A User’s Manual, by Georges Perec
I've been reading Life: A User's Manual - a valuable if somewhat overwhelming exercise, and one of the few times I've had to read with a pen and paper handy. Originally titled La Vie mode d'emploi, Perec's weird little masterpiece is the product of Oulipo, the "potential literature" project founded by Raymond Queneau in the …