the personal weblog of
Tin House’s recent interview with novelist Walter Kirn has given me a new purpose in my writing about books. There is so much good stuff in here: I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever written criticism. I’ve written book reviews, for money, in the sorts of magazines and newspapers that used to run such reviews regularly […]
Here’s something I missed awhile back: Jacob Silverman’s well-argued essay bemoaning the “the mutual admiration society that is today’s literary culture, particularly online.” An over simplification of his argument: online, book people and/or reviewers are too damned nice. I myself have stated on this blog a couple times (at least) that, philosophically, in my occasional book reviewing, […]
My review of Ploughshares Editor Ladette Randolph’s new novel, Haven’s Wake, is now live online at the Lincoln Journal-Star. A snippet of the synopsis, from the publisher: When a tractor accident fells the patriarch of this Mennonite family, the threads holding them together are suddenly drawn taut, singing with the tensions of a lifetime’s worth […]
My review of the under-appreciated novel What Happened to Sophie Wilder was published in Sunday’s paper, and is now available online. To shamelessly quote myself: If “What Happened to Sophie Wilder” was what it appears to be on first glance — a simple story about a lovesick writer and his mysterious on-again, off-again girlfriend — I would […]