I’ve written here before about Paul Lukas’s Uni Watch site, which is a daily stop in my internet wanderings. One of the reasons I love Uni Watch is that Lukas’s material aesthetic is very close to mine: he’s obsessed with fine craftsmanship, enjoys older objects, and has an eye for fine detail (and, like me,Continue reading “Paul Lukas’s Fascination With Interesting Things”
Tag Archives: Nicholson Baker
Books Acquired Recently: Melville
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: A Norton Critical Edition. 1851. Ed. Hershel Parker and Harrison Hayford. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2002. I am thinking about teaching Moby-Dick in a literary criticism course in the spring, so I requested an exam copy of the Norton edition because it includes some critical essays on the novel. The first NortonContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently: Melville”
UHF and the Loss of Cultural Memory
Last night for some reason I was thinking about Weird Al Yankovic’s 1989 film UHF (the film’s imdb.com page is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098546/). It occurred to me that this film would completely baffle my students because they would have no idea what a UHF dial is, having grown up solely with remote-control televisions and cable (myContinue reading “UHF and the Loss of Cultural Memory”
Nicholson Baker’s U and I
Nicholson Baker’s 1991 long essay U and I on his obsession with John Updike is rife with the smooth, profoundly observational prose which make him one of my favorite fiction writers, though it is also marred by two deficiencies which make it my second-least favorite book of his that I’ve read. (My least favorite isContinue reading “Nicholson Baker’s U and I”
Book Acquired Recently: Nicholson Baker’s U and I
Baker, Nicholson. U and I: A True Story. 1991. New York: Vintage, 1992. I am very excited to read this book. Nicholson Baker is one of my favorite writers because his prose flows like hot chocolate syrup, which makes his books virtually impossible to put down. I love his attention to detail and his obsessionContinue reading “Book Acquired Recently: Nicholson Baker’s U and I”
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”
Daniel Shank Cruz 