Announcement… “Family: Beyond Blood Ties” 26 Nov 2024 A few weeks ago, someone from the reading site Shepherd.com contacted me, offering me an odd-sounding "promotional opportunity": I'd write micro-reviews of five books that explore themes similar to those…
Announcement… Recommendation: “The Chatoyant Muse” 18 Dec 2023 I can't review this book, as it was written by my ex-wife. But I can certainly recommend it. It chronicles Bridget Risemberg's daunting encounter with depression, a true slog through…
book review Book Review: Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” 10 Apr 202111 Mar 2022 in Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro has produced yet another novel that is equal parts peculiar and affecting, in this case the story of an advanced AI in humanoid…
book review Micro-Review: “Blindness” 6 Mar 2021 Blindness, by José Saramago Just finished Saramago's Blindness, a bad choice to read during an actual pandemic, but a excellent if often brutal novel...though it is really more of an extended…
book review Musings on Proust, Part 9 12 Feb 2021 Proust Goes for a Laugh Proust had a bit of fun at his own expense in a comic bit that he put in is own words for a change, in…
book review Mini-Review: “The Lying Life of Adults” 27 Jan 2021 The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante In short: I loved it! An intense, passionate, honest, vulgar, and sublime poetic telling of the young girl's coming-of-age in crime-ridden Naples.…
book review Mini-Review: “Lithium for Medea” 20 Jan 2021 Lithium for Medea, by Kate Braverman An odd, passionate, and almost-perfect novel, written in a gush of negative ecstasy that echoes Allen Ginsberg's best work in but prose form, probably…
Author post… Musings on Proust, Part 8 27 Dec 202027 Dec 2020 If only Proust were not so parsimonious with his comic writing! Just laughed through a short section in the salon scene of "Le coté de Guermantes," book II, with Mme.…
book review Mini-Review: Patti Smith’s “Year of the Monkey” 6 Oct 20207 Oct 2020 Just finished Patti Smith's Year of the Monkey. Superbly written, with echoes of Pound and Bukowski, among others, and an overall feel similar to chapter 14 in Joyce's Ulysses, with…
Author post… Musings on Proust, Part Seven 12 Sep 2020 Hmm...the next book I called in to my library has not arrived yet, leaving me with only Proust for a day or two. While I have to admit that he…
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