I just updated the main photograph for the site (what Facebook would call the “cover photo”). It is a picture of one of my favorite shelves in the poetry section of my library. The photograph includes some of my favorite poets and one of my favorite books of poetry, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence andContinue reading “The New Site Photograph”
Category Archives: Literature
Brief Thoughts on Fiction in America
I mentioned in a post on 15 November that I’m currently serving on the search committee for a job opening in my department. The position is for a fiction writer, so I’ve been reading lots of short stories which serve as the candidates’ writing samples. Much of the fiction is quite good, which is comforting because it shows thatContinue reading “Brief Thoughts on Fiction in America”
Books Acquired Recently
Kroll, Eric, ed. The Art of Eric Stanton: For the Man Who Knows His Place. Cologne: Taschen, 2012. This book collects many of Stanton’s erotic drawings from the 1950s and 1960s, many of which appeared in Irving Klaw’s publications (Klaw is the man who made Bettie Page famous). It fits perfectly with my scholarly interests inContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
Ervin Beck on David Foster Wallace
There is a fascinating, impressively-researched article about David Foster Wallace’s relationship to religious faith by Ervin Beck in the latest issue of the Journal of the Center for Mennonite Writing. Wallace is one of my favorite writers, and Beck is a former professor of mine and one of the most important mentors that I’ve had,Continue reading “Ervin Beck on David Foster Wallace”
Books Acquired Recently
Atwood, Margaret. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. 2011. New York: Anchor, 2012. I ordered this book at Rocky Mountain MLA last month, and it arrived yesterday. I enjoy Atwood’s fiction and her germinal book on Canadian literature, Survival, and I have been reading more and more science fiction (the “SF” of theContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
Books Acquired Recently
Cortázar, Julio. Hopscotch. 1963. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Pantheon, 1966. I will be teaching Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters next semester, and its blurb claims that it is inspired by Cortázar’s novel. So I thought I would read it as research for teaching Castillo. Hopscotch is nearly 600 pages long in the edition I bought,Continue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton
I just finished reading Salman Rushdie’s new memoir Joseph Anton, which is primarily about the years after the fatwa was issued against his life in 1989 in response to the publication of The Satanic Verses. Rushdie writes eloquently about his most depressing emotional moments during the thirteen years when he had to live under police protection, but he also offersContinue reading “Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton”
Book Acquired Recently: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. 1953. New York: New York Review, 2012. I first became interested in acquiring this novel after reading a post about it at A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff. Shortly thereafter, I saw that New York Review Books had just come out with a new edition. I love NYRB’s booksContinue reading “Book Acquired Recently: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis”
Books Acquired Recently: Desk Copy Edition
Baldwin, James. Another Country. 1962. New York: Vintage, 1993. I will be teaching Baldwin’s and Castillo’s novels in my Introduction to Literature course next semester. Another Country has been one of my favorite books since I first read it three years ago, and I have finally decided to teach it despite its length. At 436Continue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Desk Copy Edition”
Alfred Slote’s Jake
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”
Daniel Shank Cruz 