Archives for the 'reading' Category
It’s like my team won The Big Game.
Cuz I’m so highbrow, bitchez.
Son Plans to Publish Nabokov’s Last Novel
The calf’s nose
I know that the supposed point of blogs is that they offer up-to-the-minute commentary on stuff that’s happening right now, which is why newspapers are dying and the world is ending and all, and hence, that it’s kind of pitiful to write a post about something that was in the New Yorker two weeks ago, […]
Read this entry >>“The Predisposition to Fantasy”
News analysis! Reader comments funcake!
(↑a very bad person?)
Here’s the article: Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction. And the other one, even better with slideshow.
As if you haven’t read it! But what you probably haven’t read are all 484 541 reader comments. You’re probably thinking, “What a multitude of unique voices! I wonder what all […]
Smash your head on the cock rock
I wanted to know Philip Roth. Or, more accurately, I didn’t want to not know Philip Roth. People talk him up like he’s Mr. Important–ofttimes people who are smart.
A shameful percentage of my delvings-into-things begin with the same impulse: not curiosity, but fear of humiliation. What if the world finds out that I have never […]
What Kind of Asshole?
At the Donald Barthelme tribute last night, reads the LAST CHAPTER of The Dead Father, a book I’ve been wanting to read for a really long time (and not reading, but that’s a separate issue of self-denial and has nothing to do with this)???
This man: [redacted]. Thanks for ruining the book, you pompous moron!
On the […]
Still alive, still an asshole.
In case you were wondering.
Hmm. So, for Christmas, a generous somebody got me three-fifths of the Library of America’s Complete Stories of Henry James. Them are some handsome books: compact little hardcovers with cute patterned flyleaves, place-marking ribbons, and they have that slippery onionskin paper that signifies THIS IS A SERIOUS ENDEAVOR. Mommy likes!
Henry James […]
Read this entry >>Suicide Corner!!!
Let’s see… what “Retchables” does Publisher’s Lunch have for us today?
FICTION
Debut
Amy Greene’s BLOODROOT, A multigenerational saga set in the heart of Appalachia that centers on a young girl raised by her grandmother on remote Bloodroot Mountain, and the legacy of place — and madness — that her twin children inherit, to Robin Desser at […]
I Hate the World #4
It’s BLIND ITEM time!
WHICH lion of American letters wrote the following sentence, which makes me want to claw my eyes out?
Laura’s face was as sweet as ever, her breasts were as full as ever, and who could question that her heart was in the right place?
And also inexplicably–and repeatedly!–refers to sex as “intercourse.” In the […]
Mirrors is talking about…
Endless Love by Scott Spencer
Most embarrassing cover for subway reading.
Disgustingest sex scene ever. (So! Much! Blood!)
In general: weird! And often annoying, but with a few flashes of real loveliness.
If we were gonna write novels about obsession, we’d totes do it differently.
Etc.
The grand smear
Dude. You’ve got to witness Lee Siegel clobbering the fuck out of Alice Sebold’s new novel The Almost Moon in today’s Book Review. Seriously: this is Must-See TV, folks. I wouldn’t want to give everything away, but I can’t help mentioning that he compares the thing to “one very long MySpace page.” And concludes with […]
Read this entry >>Thursday.
Thing is, for Masturbation Opus I need to learn about Wittgenstein.
Also, Pistol is what we call a Bad Influence.
Pistol: Why not have an itters bitters drink?
Lefty: Because then I can’t sleep.
Pistol: We’ll swing by my house and pick up some Ambien first.
Lefty: Huh.
Pistol: And you can borrow a philosophy book.
Lefty: (small voice) I was […]
Book Club!!!
It took me six months to read Emma, a fact I am not proud of. I must’ve read seven or eight other books during that time. I tell you that out of pride, not because it’s necessary information. Meaning: I’m not a retard, I swear!
But yeah. For five months, three weeks, and four days, I […]
Bookpranker
I hogged this to myself for a while, but since robots in the Netherlands aren’t voracious readers of secondhand books, I guess it’s safe to let it loose. Northside Junk (in Williamsburg, corner of Driggs and N. 9) is selling all books for $1 each.
The book section used to be the best part of the […]
Giggle Corner
Jernigan!
“Peter Jernigan,” I said.
“Martha Peretsky,” she said. Hands went out. As I do with women, I clasped firmly but did not shake. (With men I pump up and down.)
Hey, that’s how I do it, too! Ding-dong whang-a-lang READ THIS BOOK.
We Speak of Books, and it is Hot
You’re all dying to know how things are going with my new boyfriend. Here’s a transcript of one of our recent conversations.
Left Hook: Guess what, I finished Anna Karenina!
Daddy: …
Lefty: Yawn.
Daddy: …
Lefty: Haha! Just joking.
Daddy: …
Lefty: Sort of.
Daddy: …
Lefty: But seriously, why is finding God the solution to the plot pickle of like every 19th […]
Book Club
Wherein I talk about the books I’ve been reading, and you fall asleep.
Do you ever ask yourself why you read books? Well, I have the answer: because of the bald brutal horror of reality!
Like, to escape it! Duh.
Read this entry >>Go Easy On Me, Queen of Languages
One can live quietly and try to do tiny good things and harm no one. I cannot think of any tiny good thing to do at the moment, but perhaps I shall think of one tomorrow.1
Once a boy was lying in my bed and said, “I don’t read women writers.”
That was a while ago, and […]
Who will play Jenny Wren?
With Blogue Partenaire off to the wilds of Alabama (am I allowed to say that?) for the aforementioned wedding, I have nothing better to do than sit, glassy-eyed, and muse on the human condition.
Out of sheer laziness, I invite anyone who wants to guestwrite or ghostwrite an entry to send it in, and if it’s […]
Yawn Story
Friday night was the One Story reading. Kind of lame going to a reading without my trusty sidekick, but you know, when you make your living blagging about literature, science, and social anthropology, you can’t miss an event like this just because you have PMS (still somewhat unexplained by science) and an aversion to going […]
Read this entry >>I heart Nancy Franklin
Her TV reviews are pretty much my favorite thing about the New Yorker. And I don’t even watch TV, except at the gym with the sound off. It doesn’t matter whether you’re ever going to see the show in question, because her writing is so smart and funny and engaging, you just want to gobble […]
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