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ARCHIVES
JUNE, 2008: Ben Marcus, Notable American Author
I
wanted my friend Peter to read this book, but Peter hates
to read books like this. I think he may have yelled at me
when I suggested it. Later that day, a bat flew into my apartment,
attracted by the sound of a man yelling about experimental
fiction.
[Full article]
MAY, 2008: SWF ISO Book—Must Have Beautiful Cover
I
could easily overlook a sexy but incorrect dangling participle,
but I had to stop emailing the guy who wrote "the only book
I read is the dictionary and thats only when I read you're
emails lol," even though he followed up that amusing anecdote
with the adorable "you got those big lips that make me think
of blow jobs." What a charmer!
[Full article]
APRIL,
2008: The Persistence of Memory
Maybe the average fake memoirist is just so
bad at writing that she knows she can't sell her book as fiction.
I know I hold fiction writers to a higher standard regarding
structure and prose. Nothing personal, but I'm not reading
the memoir of a crack whore for beautiful sentences.
[Full article]
MARCH,
2008: This Book Is Not a Movie
Films
can be as thought-provoking as books, and in some cases the
cinematic versions can affect viewers aurally and visually.
Books that are notoriously hard to read because of language
or dialect, like Trainspotting, go down much easier
cinematically.
[Full article]
FEBRUARY,
2008: Writers in Love
I've
never read anything by [Ayelet] Waldman that wasn't about
her super-awesome life, which makes me think she'd just be
a suburban housewife by now, had she not married [Michael]
Chabon. Chabon—she's your fault!
[Full article]
JANUARY,
2008: Kathryn
Davis May Be the Best Author You Haven't Read Yet
Davis
adeptly swept me into the head of the 14-year-old princess,
her flighty moods and her sorrow and excitement at leaving
Austria to become the bride of France's King Louis XVI. The
book starts, "My soul is going on a trip. I want to talk about
her. I want to talk about her. Why would anyone ever want
to talk about anything else?"
[Full article]
DECEMBER,
2007: Books
I Meant to Read in 2007
[James Wood] coined the term "hysterical
realism," but he meant it as an insult. Can you imagine how
he must have hounded poor [wife, Claire] Messud until she
produced what he might consider the perfect novel? It must
be good, right?
[Full article]
NOVEMBER,
2007: Idle
Hands Are the Writer's Workshop
We still need feedback and criticism on our
writing; otherwise, how will we know when it's ready to send
to Pindelyboz or other nonsensically-named, non-paying
literary journals? And that's why, even though we writers
have ten other friends who are also writers, we pay to be
in writing workshops with strangers.
[Full article]
OCTOBER,
2007: The
Flowers of Romence
Drawing
Blood left me hungry for saucier man-on-man literary action.
Back in those days (the '90s), the spicier gay lit was relegated
to the adult video stores or the gay bookstore for those who
were lucky enough to have one in their town. But a lot of
what those stores carried was porn, which I didn't find very
interesting. Like most of you, I read all the porn I needed
to read in junior high.
[Full article]
SEPTEMBER,
2007: Christopher
Hitchens Is not Great
What
is this, besides a recruitment tool for the Atheist religion?
And why can't they produce pamphlets like everyone else?
[Full article]
AUGUST,
2007: Book Commercials: A Series of YouTubes
Publishers
spending $10,000 on a 10-minute trailer are never going to
admit that they wasted their money. [One] video has received
approximately 20,000 views on YouTube, which is pretty good,
but a video of my cats rolling around in catnip has garnered
38,000 views—18,000 more views than their $1,000-a-minute
book video.
[Full article]
JULY,
2007: Semen-al YA Books
Even
when boys are not actively doing something, like in
The Chocolate War, they are quietly fightin' the man
and getting their shit together on the inside. Girls, they
trade pants. In books for girls, pants have more adventures
than girls do.
[Full article]
JUNE,
2007: It's Comical
As
feminists, we thought it was OK to act out and come on to
comic book aardvarks. We also thought that Connie L. was a
bit of social commentary on the state of comics at that time—it
still was a boys' club.
[Full article]
MAY,
2007: Even
the Famous Have Low S.O.
Or, What's Wrong With Stephen King?
If King wants me to eat Mary
Higgins Clark's meatloaf, I will demand he read Ben Marcus's
Notable American Women, which is the literary equivalent
of fugu.
[Full
article]
APRIL,
2007: Dear Mr. Pynchon: An Open Letter to My Favorite Recluse
Barbara and I liked to trade Stephen King
and V.C. Andrews novels, so our idea of "good" was highly
subjective. In the box was a paperback called The Crying
of Lot 49 that had a very groovy illustration. I took
it for the cover alone. Apparently, you can judge a book by
its cover.
[Full
article]
MARCH,
2007: The Anatomy of My Ten-Year Crush on David Foster Wallace
Even when I wasn't reading IJ, I was
thinking about it, wondering who was sending the movie cartridges
that were inducing comas, wondering if CT was Mario's father,
wondering if Wallace was single and liked sinister little
goth girls…
[Full
article]
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