There’s a new short film on grantland.com by Jonathan Hock about Alfred Slote’s children’s novel Jake, with a great introduction by Bill Simmons here. Like Simmons, I read Jake and one of Slote’s other novels, Hang Tough, Paul Mather, over and over as a boy. They were perfect because they used baseball, something which IContinue reading “Alfred Slote’s Jake”
Author Archives: danielshankcruz
Book Acquired Recently: Juan Pablo Villalobos’s Down the Rabbit Hole
Villalobos, Juan Pablo. Down the Rabbit Hole. 2010. Trans. Rosalind Harvey. New York: Farrar, 2012. Last night I attended a reading by the Mexican novelist Juan Pablo Villalobos (who was educated in Spain and now lives in Brazil), his first ever in the United States. He read from Down the Rabbit Hole, a 70-page novellaContinue reading “Book Acquired Recently: Juan Pablo Villalobos’s Down the Rabbit Hole”
Richard Hugo’s Poetry
I just finished reading through Richard Hugo’s Selected Poems, and the collection is an excellent one. I love the sense of place in Hugo’s poems, whether he is out in nature fishing, or sitting in a small town cafe, or writing about his travels in Italy, or describing his life in Montana. In “Letter toContinue reading “Richard Hugo’s Poetry”
Books Acquired Recently
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. 2009. San Francisco: Night Shade, 2012. This book and Walker’s were recently recommended to me by a new friend that I met at Rocky Mountain MLA last week. They both sound fascinating. The reviews of The Windup Girl just inside of the front cover compare it to William Gibson’s writing,Continue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
The End of Newsweek
I read today that Newsweek will cease publication of its print version at the end of 2012: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/18/news/companies/newsweek-print-edition/index.html?hpt=hp_t3. This is sad news. The magazine is another casualty of the shift toward electronic texts, which, as I have written about here before (and yes, I am aware of the irony of writing against digital culture inContinue reading “The End of Newsweek”
Paul Lukas’s Permanent Record Blog
I just got around to checking out Permanent Record, which is a blog written by Paul Lukas of UniWatch fame. Here is the address: http://www.permanentrecordproject.blogspot.com/. As someone who is also fascinated by print culture ephemera, I think Permanent Record is fantastic! The blog’s description mentions writing about topics including “things left inside of old books,”Continue reading “Paul Lukas’s Permanent Record Blog”
The USA Continues on the Road to the World Cup
The USA advanced to the final round of qualifying for the 2014 (Men’s) World Cup last night with their 3-1 victory over Guatemala. The Yanks won their group, which was expected, though they put in several terrible performances along the way. The USA is still a favorite to grab one of the three automatic qualifying spotsContinue reading “The USA Continues on the Road to the World Cup”
Books Acquired Recently: Rocky Mountain MLA Edition II
Today I walked around downtown Boulder, Colorado with a colleague and several new friends as Rocky Mountain MLA wound down. We visited two excellent bookstores, Red Letter Secondhand Books (where they gave me my books in a recycled Borders bag! Independent bookstores forever!) and Left Hand Book Collective, a fantastic all-volunteer leftist bookstore (though I’dContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Rocky Mountain MLA Edition II”
Books Acquired Recently: Rocky Mountain MLA Edition
I’m currently at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association conference, which has been fun so far although the conference hotel does not have free internet access. This afternoon I took a stroll through the book fair and picked up a few things (plus ordered several more that I will write about when I receive them):Continue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Rocky Mountain MLA Edition”
Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her
I just finished reading Junot Diaz’s new book, This Is How You Lose Her. I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. The stories basically all have the same plot–an incredibly sexy woman leaves an idiotic man (usually Yunior) who cheats on her–but Diaz’s language, especially his gift for dialogue andContinue reading “Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her”
Daniel Shank Cruz 