Clueless People Behaving Badly The Corrections Jonathan Franzen. New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2001 This saga of Midwest family life put Franzen on the map, as did its selection for Oprah’s Book Club (the kiss of death), which he … Continue reading
High-Wire Act McCann, Colum. (2009). Let the Great World Spin. New York: Random House. This set of stories describes the lives of ordinary people in New York City in 1974. As the stories unfold, the lives of the dozen or … Continue reading
Editing as Creative as Writing Bell, Susan (2007). The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself. New York: W.W. Norton. Bell has been a book editor for decades and in this well-written and well-edited volume, provides instruction and explanation about … Continue reading
Adams, W. A. (2007). Does Campaign Information Affect Your Vote? [Review of the book, How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Election Campaigns]. PsycCRITIQUES—Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, (May 30, 2007, Vol. 52, Release 22, Article 17).Retrieved May 30, 2007 from … Continue reading
Drunk Guy Dies in Mexico Lowry, Malcolm. (1947). Under the Volcano. New York: Harper & Row. It’s intimidating to read an iconic novel like this, one universally acclaimed as a “towering achievement in 20th century literature,” and so forth. It’s as … Continue reading
A Study in Narratology Eugenides, Jeffrey. (2002). Middlesex. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. This Pulitzer Prize winner is actually two novels in one, which accounts for its 530 pages. Either story might have made a good novel. Concatenating them suggests, … Continue reading
An Imperfect Exercise Rachman, Tom. (2010). The Imperfectionists. New York: Random House/Dial. This New York Times “Notable Book” has an interesting marketing angle. Its cover and first few inside pages contain hyperbolic praise from newspaper book reviewers, while the book itself … Continue reading
Horror Stories from Hollywood Hanson, Peter & Herman, Paul Robert (Eds.) (2010) Tales From the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories. New York: Harper Collins. I’m not a screenwriter or even an aspiring one, but I picked this book up because … Continue reading
Sex Without Feeling Hawkes, John (1974). Death, Sleep, & the Traveler. New York: New Directions. I ran across several references to Hawkes’ novels as “literary mysteries,” and I’m interested in that, so I took a look at two of his short … Continue reading
Dream Your Way Inside Butler, Robert Olen. (1983). Countrymen of Bones. New York: Holt. There are two protagonists in this story set in the New Mexico desert at the end of World War II. Darrell is an archeologist digging up the … Continue reading