Category Archives for novels
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
One of the greatest joys of summer, for me, is getting a brief glimpse of that seemingly long-ago period of my life when I used to Read for Fun. Which is something different from having fun while reading; it’s reading … Continue reading
Frey Them!
So I spent much of yesterday attempting to compile my meager thoughts about l’affaire Frey into something halfway worthy of a post. After all, this little crisis around the truth value of the memoir is hardly the first such I’ve … Continue reading
Saul Bellow, 1915-2005
News of the latest in the recent flood of notable passings reached me late last night: Saul Bellow is dead at 89. There’s something that rings very end-of-an-era to me about his death, and this despite my just flat not … Continue reading
Oblivion
All day yesterday, the guy down the hall was the cover story on Salon (subscription or ad-viewing required). Which would have been weirder than it was, except that he’s been off on the book tour, so it wasn’t as though … Continue reading
Pecked to Death
Returning to a topic from way back: Dale Peck, who wields the book review like a truncheon, has published a collection of his articles, entitled, appropriately, Hatchet Jobs (note the subtlety of the cover!). Peck, should you have forgotten, or … Continue reading
Confessions of a Semi-Successful Author
Today, on Salon [subscription or ad-viewing required], the travails of the mid-list author in contemporary publishing: If you don’t want to hear about the noir underside of publishing—if you’re a writer longing for a literary career, or a reader who’s … Continue reading
“We’ve Been Misread!”
There’s a certain irony hanging over Christopher Dreher’s followup [Salon.com; subscription or ad-viewing required] on the changes afoot at the New York Times Book Review. At precisely the moment when Bill Keller, in an interview with the Book Babes, seems … Continue reading
Perhaps the Dumbest Teaching Question Ever
Here’s something I probably ought to have thought of before the semester started, perhaps even before planning on teaching a class like The Big Novel: It’s really, really hard to get students to talk actively about a text they’ve only … Continue reading
The Book May Not Be Dead…
…but it’s possible that the book review is. Or at least that the serious book-review publication is. Witness this demoralizing development at the New York Times Book Review: as if we didn’t all already know that the NYTBR was skewed … Continue reading
National Book Critics Circle Nominations
Ah, having made our way through the madness of the top-ten lists, award season is upon us. The Bloggies are of course merely one manifestation thereof. And while the various film awards are the ones that get the most press … Continue reading
