In an article in the July 12, 2012 New York Review of Books, Michael Chabon writes that he “acquired five copies, of various size and vintage” of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake during the year that he worked his way through the novel. I love this little detail because I, too, find myself obsessively buying different printingsContinue reading “On the Accumulation of Multiple Copies of the Same Book”
Tag Archives: literature
John Irving’s In One Person
John Irving’s new novel In One Person is a beautiful, fantastic book. It is narrated by Bill in the present day as he reflects upon growing up in the 1950s and the intervening half-century. He realizes as a teenager that he is bisexual, and the rest of the novel describes his journey to figuring outContinue reading “John Irving’s In One Person”
“Another Life” by Paul La Farge
There’s a fantastic short story in this week’s New Yorker (July 2, 2012) by Paul La Farge called “Another Life,” which is about an English professor (aren’t stories by English professors about English professors the best?) in his late 30s who picks up the bartender of his hotel after his wife goes off to sleepContinue reading ““Another Life” by Paul La Farge”
Theodora Keogh’s My Name is Rose
Theodora Keogh’s 1956 novel My Name is Rose is, like her 1954 novel, The Fascinator, about a married woman having an affair. However, unlike the earlier book, where the story builds up to the affair and the woman is not punished, My Name is Rose depicts a woman whose actions drive her to madness becauseContinue reading “Theodora Keogh’s My Name is Rose”
R.I.P. Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron died today at the age of 71. This is a major loss for American culture. While I enjoyed a number of Ephron’s films, including When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Bewitched, I will especially remember her for her occasional witty personal essays from the New Yorker and her early feminist essaysContinue reading “R.I.P. Nora Ephron”
Women Readers and the Crisis of the Male Novelist
Elaine Blair has a fantastic article in the current issue of The New York Review of Books (July 12, 2012) about how the fictional trend of oafish male protagonists has evolved from the work of hoary giants such as Philip Roth and John Updike through the work of present-day writers such as Gary Shteyngart andContinue reading “Women Readers and the Crisis of the Male Novelist”
Real Books Forever! or, Just Say “No” to ebooks
There is a fascinating and disturbing article by Ken Auletta in this week’s (June 25, 2012) New Yorker about the current legal face-offs between amazon.com and six large publishing companies in the U.S. (Random House, Penguin, Macmillan, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster). Basically, Apple created a deal with the publishers to fix their ebookContinue reading “Real Books Forever! or, Just Say “No” to ebooks”
Theodora Keogh’s The Fascinator
Theodora Keogh’s 1954 novel The Fascinator is a stylistic departure from many of her other novels in that it follows numerous characters closely instead of one or two, and in that the climax occurs on the very last page rather than allowing room (sometimes too much room) for a denoument. The book is a slow,Continue reading “Theodora Keogh’s The Fascinator”
Books Acquired Recently: Theodora Keogh
Keogh, Theodora. The Fascinator. New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1954. —. My Name is Rose. 1956. New York: Signet, 1958. —. The Tattooed Heart. 1953. New York: Signet, 1954. Theodora Keogh is my latest literary obsession, so I’ve been buying her out-of-print books on amazon.com as I find them (several of her novels haveContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Theodora Keogh”
Books Acquired Recently: Giannina Braschi
Braschi, Giannina. Empire of Dreams. Trans. Tess O’Dwyer. Las Vegas: AmazonCrossing, 2011. —. United States of Banana. Las Vegas: AmazonCrossing, 2011. —. Yo-Yo Boing! 1998. Trans. Tess O’Dwyer. Las Vegas: AmazonCrossing, 2011. I hadn’t heard of Giannina Braschi until about a month ago when I received an email from amazon.com in my school account (notContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Giannina Braschi”
Daniel Shank Cruz 