We thought we’d put some ideas here.
When anyone asks me what I do (though I can't remember the last time I was in the company of any strangers—that would be people I don't know—so thoroughly American), I now will answer solemnly, "I am a Revisionist Historian." I am still working out the job description, but a portion of my responsibilities will …
Field-Tested Books: Summer Reading 2003 Matt, Thought that as a book lover you might find this interesting. http://www.coudal.com/reading.php For Coudal Partners' "Field-Tested Books: Summer Reading 2003," our 25 contributors reviewed books they read in various locations, some exotic, some mundane. The reviews are sorted by location, i.e. where the books were read, and each one …
Summer reading as a category seems to me to be as legitimate as greeting-card holidays like Valentine's and Mother's Day. Graybeard Norman Mailer had it right when he was asked about his summer reading, "I read all year around." Despite this sensibility, that one would hope is shared by at least a few people, some …
Despite my aversion to soft-cover editions (a distaste I overcome as a matter of occupational necessity as a recipient of a storm of galleys and advance reader's editions), I recently found three books (well, four, but Selected Writing of Jose Marti is not a book I plan to foist on my literate friends and acquaintances) …
“Despite my aversion to soft-cover editions…” -May 19, 2003 Read More »
The other day not only did I speak with Robert Stone but I attended his reading/book signing at Brookline Booksmith. One of the many revelations coming from my chat with the portentous Stone was that a fairly significant amount of his tour of duty in Boston (and other places) was involved in going to book …
“Why would someone want a signed edition…?” -May 13, 2003 Read More »
United Nations report "confirms"--Fatwa on American Woman Novelist Kola Boof News Release: A report presented on the floor of the United Nations confirms that a "Fatwa" was issued against the life of American writer Kola Boof as early as July of 2002...by the government of Sudan! To obtain a transcript of the actual United Nations …
May 1 is May Day, celebrating the observance of spring and the renewal of life and Labor Day everywhere in the world except the U.S., Canada and Bermuda. Once again, workers of the world unite! May is National Book Month (www.nationalbook.org) and Get Caught Reading Month (www.getcaughtreading.org). Also, like a bad version of David Foster …
I was reading one of those snarky (here's a word that has been riding a linguistic wave) on the new literary magazine The Believer: So is The Believer worth your $8? I can't see it, really. The New Yorker, the NYRB, The Atlantic, even, I daresay, Salon – all these places have more interesting stuff. …
“Is The Believer worth your $8?” –April 22, 2003 Read More »
Two things I don't have are a critical theory and a theory about critical theories (known in some English lit. circles as a meta-theory). Perhaps because I am at heart a naïve enthusiast or because I have great reverence for the efforts involved in writing books or making movies or creating a great piano or …
Having mostly favored writers and thinkers who exhibit synoptic views I find myself, via some osmotic transference, inhibited from chronicling some of the thoughts and observations that are whizzing around some part of my mental space because they are small and somewhat self-contained. Or at least do not, at the moment they occur to me, …
“Ideational monads, little billiard balls of thoughts” –March 30, 2003 Read More »
