Category Archives: Uncategorized

This has to be No. 1 in some weird category of Books I Like But Have Not Read. I’ve mentioned it before: Steve Hely’s satiric/comic novel, How I Became a Famous Novelist, which came out this summer, and it sounds … Continue reading →

So this weekend I read Nick Reding’s Methland, a nonfiction book about the effects of the crystal meth “epidemic” on America (this is harped on too much) and in particular, on the town of Oelwein, Iowa. In part I read … Continue reading →

So being the father of a two-year-old, it took me a while to watch the based-on-a-true-story Changeling (2008)—a star turn for Angelina Jolie (whom I sympathize with; she seems like a kind mom, even if she is a Hollywood brat, … Continue reading →

So there’s a minidebate in the NY Times this week about nonfiction writers writing about family, the painful and embarrassing moments. It arises from a book published in the U.K. and recently in the U.S., Julie Myerson’s The Lost Child, … Continue reading →

Here’s a gem from Sunday’s NY Times “Inside the List” piece in the Book Review: HARRY POTTER, YEAR ZERO: Speaking of Harry, here are the 10 titles grown-ups were reading when “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first book … Continue reading →

So I’m reading the NY Times this morning and encounter a head-in-the-sand scolding the notion of Peak Oil here: www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/opinion/25lynch.html I’ve read much about this idea and some of it includes (hopefully) laughable doomsday scenarios, and some of it seems … Continue reading →

I wrote the following as a request for a former student, to be posted on the Southeast Review’s webpage: Mystery in Storytelling One of the tricks in story telling—and believe me, there’s a hundred tricks that the best writers use … Continue reading →

So I noticed this little gem this morning, in Newsweek, an article titled “Isolation Increases in U.S.” (www.newsweek.com/id/213088) Here’s a quote from it: “Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace may provide people with a false sense of connection that ultimately … Continue reading →

After about two weeks of traveling, which included visiting family in St. Louis, I’m back in Pennsylvania, house painting, breathing a sigh that I have DirecTV again. The various motels we slept in while crossing the Heartland all seemed to … Continue reading →

That’s like a J.P. Donleavy title, isn’t it? No one mentions Donleavy anymore. He was a great comic novelist in the Sixties and Seventies. One of his titles is The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (1968). He’s good. His best novel … Continue reading →