I thought it would be fun to do a D&D type book review rubric. At first I thought of assigning new characteristics (plot, character development, surprise and unpredictability, prose, world-building, and narrative), but then I thought why not just try the D& attributes and see what that looked like. Pride and Prejudice was an obvious choice …
Sorrow Capsule review: Sorrow (Braddock Avenue Books, 2013) is literary fiction which I probably wouldn’t have read if I didn’t know Catherine. That would have been my loss. It is a tragedy, told without shying away from its own darkness, in simple, powerful prose. It takes courage to read but is well worth it. Buy …
The Vorrh by B[rian] Catling is an odd book. Not the strangest one I’ve ever read – that distinction still belongs to Moby Dick. (The Vorrh, probably not coincidentally, also includes a character named Ishmael.) It is very worth reading; its imagination, language, and storylines are all compelling. It’s smart, sophisticated, and nakedly elegant; there …
I spent five days at the beginning of June in Istanbul, being a tourist. I had a great time and came back with lots of ideas and thoughts. Below is my post of all the things I wish the guidebooks or online sites had told me before I went — I’ll write about the imaginative …
It’s been ages since I blogged. Life. Lots of writing. Tomorrow is Independence Day, so I want to post a few passages from one of my favorite SCOTUS cases, 1942, re salutation of the flag. The opinion is by Robert Jackson, who is almost my favorite justice ever: Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in …