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In moods veering between manic intensity and deadening numbness, Roddy Doyle’s alcoholic, abused narrator Paula Spencer keeps us hanging onto her roller-coaster life. Her harsh language calls up a tough girlhood in which “you were a slut or a tight bitch, one or the other, if you were a...
If only I were better about doing this AS I'm reading vs. way after the fact. I think we're on number 18. And so, here we go: #18 The Tent by Margaret Atwood - Poetical little vignettes of fiction, similar to her book Good Bones & Simple Murders. I really enjoyed this tiny book, filled with her own...
Like the RawkusCrowd was chanting as Mr.JamesArthur“Art”Monk took the Podium, last SaturdayNight, on the Stage in Canton.Ohio, during the 4Minute StandingOvation, (the longest StandingO in the Hall’s history by the way) “It’s-about-time! – It’s-about-time!” It is about time. It’s...
I'm presently reading a book I had chanced upon in the library-- "Why Read" by Mark Edmundson. At first, you would think that this book would focus on literature and suggest titles to read. What I ended up reading was a whole lot more. Though the author presents the reasons why one should read, he...
Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died aged 89, according to the Associated Press. Not only was he a great author (admission: I have only ever read passages of his books), he was one of Russia’s straight-shooters. I like to think Solzhenitsyn was largely fair, pointing out the faults of Russia and the...
Show us your bookcase. Submitted by Alexandra. I'd rather not, in case there is anything that'll embarass Jess. Most of my books are back home in the UK. Our bookcase contains... - All of Jess' Chuck Palahniuk hardbacks, mostly first editions, some signed - A ton of David Sedaris - Books about the...
Sister, do you remember the Easter Sunday I broke out with chicken pox. Lying in Grandmother's walnut bed, I counted the red dots sprinkled against my ribs, circling up my chest, Furious I stuffed yellow chicks (artificial ones, that is) into a fat glass bottle for punishment. My room was shadowed,...
Are both J.D. Salinger and the universe trying to tell me something? Excuse my giddiness but I'm a capital-H HUGE lit fan and have shit my drawers clean finding out that Salinger is going to publish (use that loosely, if need be) material for the first time since 1965. Hapworth exists on shoddy...
I'm not out to destroy my own credibility as a student studying the humanities. But when I got into the course, I realized how much of a non-reader I was. Let's just say that if ever one would classify readers into more specific categories, I'd fall under the "required readings reader" category. And...
My thinking can tankers are moving once again. This time it is because of an email I just picked up from my writing group. The email announced the retirement of African-American Author Omar Tyree and included a link to an article which explains Tyree's reasons for his voluntarily retirement. What it...
"I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are more to me than corner lots and praise."
This is by Joseph Miller, the New Yorker columnist who specialized in long-form journalism. Old Mr. Flood is a 93-year-old seafood lover who refuses to reconcile himself to the inevitibilty of death. Mr. Flood snorted again. "Oh, shut up," he said. "Damn your doctor. I tell you what to do. You get...
It is hard to know where to begin a book review of The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison: Speaking the Unspeakable Edited by Marc C. Connor particularly without knowing what you, the reader, might be interested in. The following are simply some of my gleanings from the book. 1. Morrison’s work has drawn...
Thanking my lucky stars for frequent flyer status, I skipped to the head of the security line yesterday at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. When I made my travel plans, I'd forgotten that yesterday was the day after the last day of most schools in the area. With so many infrequent flyers going...
The photograph was taken at Spanish Fort, Alabama on Mobile Bay some period of time after Katrina. "I had lost my future retirement dream home in a distressed sale (foreclosure). That photograph represented all my lost dreams; my heart was ripped out; and I realized I NEVER had any security in my...
THE DARK ANGEL A hand touches your bed and down the street a car skids into a giant oak. This is not your child lying in the white hospital with a broken spine, closed lungs, not this time, but the dark angel hovers singing prophecies, a prowler waits at the midnight door your daughter opens, your...
Particularly for Vox-brarians in the neighborhood or anyone who has read his works and my little old vox: I had a shitty education leading up to university and once there, I focused on my areas of study. They did not include literature (except one class in French Literature and that was in French)....
i've almost finished this book. it was ok. funny, at times kinda repetitive. not as good as some people have told me that "me talk pretty one day" was. i haven't read that book yet, so i'll have to catch onto that one later. next up, "junky" by william s. burroughs: ever since i read "naked lunch"...
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