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Recent Posts
- On “Die My Love”: Jennifer Lawrence Channels Her Inner Kristi Noem, and Does Not Write the Great American Novel
- “The Salt Path” (2025): An Underappreciated Film That Includes Actual Humanity
- Our “White Lotus,” Or Life as a Set-Jetter
- On Sleeping With Dogs
- The Year Without a Winter (in the Southwest): 2025-2026
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Category Archives: writing
On “Die My Love”: Jennifer Lawrence Channels Her Inner Kristi Noem, and Does Not Write the Great American Novel
So after a lot of pre-release buzz the Jennifer Lawrence film Die My Love fizzled at the box office and did not get much attention. (Note: Minor spoilers ahead.) That’s a bit unfortunate, as it has the terrific performance of … Continue reading
“The Salt Path” (2025): An Underappreciated Film That Includes Actual Humanity
So my wife and I are inveterate backpackers—the seasoned, often bedraggled kind. We’ve backpacked in many locations from Denali National Park in Alaska (perhaps the “wildest” backcountry) to Yellowstone and the Wind Rivers in Wyoming and many others. But truth … Continue reading
How To Write a Book About the Wind: On Simon Winchester’s “The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind”
So I have to begin with a confession: I’m most definitely a fan of the much-acclaimed nonfiction writer Simon Winchester. One of my first Winchester reads and still one of his finest (and my favorite) was Krakatoa: The Day the … Continue reading
Ten Years Left of Humanity, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the A.I. Bomb: On Two Visions of the Upcoming A.I. Apocalypse: Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’ “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” and Mustafa Suleyman’s “The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future”
So I recently read the somewhat-infamous bestseller by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All (2025). It’s a white-knuckled warning about the imminent peril of ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). … Continue reading
Posted in A.I., A.I. 2027, A.I. Apocalypse, A.S.I. (Artificial Super Intelligence), Annihilation, books, Economics, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares' If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, Mustafa Suleyman's The Coming Wave: A.I., Power, and Our Future, Uncategorized, Universal Income, writing
Tagged A.I., A.I. 2027, A.I. Apocalypse, A.S.I., Book Reviewing, The Coming Wave
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On Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Lake” and the Pleasures of “Old” Books:
So one of the downsides of our irritating Consumer Culture is that we’re programmed to be always looking for the next New Thing—be it car, refrigerator, book, movie, or significant other. It can lead to a niggling feeling that our … Continue reading
Posted in Andrew Ross Sorkin's "1929, books, Consumer Culture, Simon Winchester's "The Breath of the Gods", Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita", writing, Yasunari Kawabata, Yasunari Kawabata's "The Lake"
Tagged Andrew Ross Sorkin's "1929, Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Simon Winchester's The Breath of the Gods, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
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Shocking Bird Population Decline as in The Bird Saviors
So for years I’ve been reading about and studying Climate Change (though I do find Global Weirding to be witty and accurate), for various reasons, some of them personal of course: I have a daughter who will live in this … Continue reading
Posted in Birding, books/film, Climate Change, The West, writing
Tagged Birding, Climate Change, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West, Wildfires
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On Why I Read Dan Brown's "Origin": Or My Adventures as a Consumer of Best-Selling Drivel
So I was recently having dinner with a best-selling writer—a bit of literary socializing before said writer gave a reading on our campus—and we had reached the point of small-talk detailing what books we’d been reading. This is often the … Continue reading
Guest Blog Post on the Superstition Review Website
So the nice editors over at the Superstition Review have not only published several of my stories and a recent essay—on stuffed animals, of all things—but they have also asked that I write a guest blog post for them, which … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Cormac McCarthy, writing
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
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On William Gay's "Little Sister Death": a Novel That Puts the P in Posthumous
So I should begin by the admission that I’m a diehard William Gay fan, and have been for years, ever since reading his first novel—The Long Home (1999), which was edited/published by none other than my own editor, Greg Michalson—though … Continue reading
On Kent Haruf's "Our Souls at Night": The Last Waltz in Holt, Colorado
So I felt a mixture of sadness and readerly pleasure upon opening Kent Haruf’s final, posthumous novel, Our Souls at Night, to be published by Knopf this month. I first encountered Haruf’s fiction in 1999, when I was assigned his … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, The West, Uncategorized, writing
Tagged Book Reviewing, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Kent Haruf, The West
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