Category Archives: Literature

Books Acquired Recently

Keri, Jonah. Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, Le Grand Orange, Youppi!, The Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos. 2014. Toronto: Vintage, 2015. I enjoy Keri’s writing for ESPN.com, and have been thinking about buying this book since it came out last year. I wasContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”

Books Acquired Recently

Gornick, Vivian. The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir. New York: Farrar, 2015. I haven’t read Gornick’s work before, but I read a review of this memoir about her walks exploring New York City and ordered it immediately afterward because I have been getting more and more interested in walking as a political andContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”

Books Acquired Recently: Sports History Edition

Katz, Jeff. Split Season: 1981: Fernandomania, the Bronx Zoo, and the Strike That Saved Baseball. New York: Dunne, 2015. 1981 was one of the weirdest seasons in Major League history because it was bisected by a players’ strike. Apparently no one has ever written a book on it, though, and I was too young toContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Sports History Edition”

Books Acquired Recently: Mennonite Literature Edition

Hedrick, Emily. True Confessions of a God Killer: A Postmodern Pilgrim’s Progress. Telford: DreamSeeker, 2014. When this book was first released last year I heard about it and thought “Hmm, that’s an interesting title,” but I assumed it was theology (which is primarily what Cascadia, DreamSeeker’s parent company, publishes) rather than fiction, and thus didn’tContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Mennonite Literature Edition”

Books Acquired Recently

Adler, Renata. Speedboat. 1976. New York: New York Review, 2013. Fox, Paula. Desperate Characters. 1970. New York: Norton, 1999. I was recently reading The David Foster Wallace Reader, which includes a few syllabi from Wallace’s creative writing and literature courses. The syllabi are the best written, most thought-provoking ones I have ever encountered, and itContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”

Book Acquired Recently: Jill Bialosky’s The Players

Bialosky, Jill. The Players. New York: Knopf, 2015. I recently read a review of this poetry collection and decided to buy it because it includes a section about baseball. Baseball and poetry are a perfect match for each other because they both invite contemplation. The empty spaces between pitches (which really only seem to beContinue reading “Book Acquired Recently: Jill Bialosky’s The Players”

Books Acquired Recently

Coverley, Merlin. The Art of Wandering: The Writer as Walker. Harpenden: Oldcastle, 2012. Dorsey, Candas Jane. Black Wine. New York: Tor, 1997. —. Machine Sex and Other Stories. London: Women’s, 1990. I bought these three books (all from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers) as a result of reading Greg Bechtel’s collection of short stories BoundaryContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”

Books Acquired Recently: Nostalgia Edition

My parents have recently been completing some house renovations, and in the process of moving furniture around to accommodate these changes my mother has been de-accessioning some books. She asked whether I wanted any of them and I took a few, some because I have fond memories of them from childhood and some because IContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Nostalgia Edition”

Books Acquired Recently: Mennonite Literature Edition

As I mentioned in a recent entry, I attended Mennonite/s Writing VII at Fresno Pacific University two weeks ago. Aside from the books that I bought at the conference, I also came away with a number of recommendations of books, and these texts have been arriving in the mail all week. I was able toContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Mennonite Literature Edition”