Reply
Eye of the Beholder Saramago, José (1995). Blindness. New York: Harvest. A man sits in his car at a traffic light, staring at the red, waiting for the green. The light turns green and the cars around him roar ahead. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Good Books
Cute Kittens Sell Books! Lamb, Kristen (2013). Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World. Ebook: WANA International ISBN: 1938848322. Lamb is a well-known social media guru for writers and this book offers advice on how to establish and … Continue reading
Wittgenstein’s Mistress on the Mezzanine Ridgway, Keith (2007). Animals. New York: Harper Perrenial. An unnamed, first-person narrator is a free-lance illustrator of animals, in or around London. He describes his ordinary, nerdy life in excruciating detail, reminiscent of Nicholson Baker’s … Continue reading
Magical Story of Humanity Marquez, Gabriel Garcia (1970). One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Harper and Row. It’s difficult to have an opinion about a book that is universally revered as one of the greatest novels of all time, … Continue reading
Second-Person in New York McInerney, Jay (1984). Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Vintage. This short (182 pp) novel of 1980’s New York City is widely praised as having nailed that period and place. I don’t know – I wasn’t … Continue reading
“Nothing can be meaningfully affirmed.” – Friedrich Nietzsche Geuss, Raymond, &Speirs, Ronald (Eds.) (1999). Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. The main Nietzschean text presented in this book is The Birth of … Continue reading
A 75-Page Novel Shteyngart, Gary (2010). Super Sad True Love Story. New York: Random House. This is my second attempt to read Shteyngart, a darling of the literary fiction world these days. Earlier, I had attempted to read Absurdistan and … Continue reading
Writer as Artist DeLillo, Don (2001). The Body Artist. New York: Scribner. This short book (125 pp) by an acclaimed master novelist is perplexing, disturbing, and confusing, yet also haunting, dense, and impressive from a craft standpoint. What’s it about? … Continue reading
Happiness is a Warm Puppy Baxter, Charles (2000). The Feast of Love. New York: Vintage. In a group of interwoven short stories, Charles Baxter explores the vicissitudes of love, with plenty of sex. Chapters rotate among a handful of characters, … Continue reading
Humorous Homilies Lamott, Anne. (1994). Bird By Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life. NY: Anchor. In a series of personal essays and anecdotes, Lamott muses on what it’s like to be a writer. It’s not really an “instruction,” as … Continue reading