Back in college, I once dropped a copy of Robert Anton Wilson’s Schr

Interesting piece in the NYT that traces the development of the artist (painter/writer) from a craftsman to an icon: "Then came the Romantic movement, and with it, artists turned from pleasing the world to indulging themselves: they rebelled against conventions, proclaimed their uniqueness, disdained the bourgeoisie as philistine, savored their own melancholy and formed cliques. […]

We stopped by The Shaskeen on Elm Street in Manchester Sunday afternoon with the kids to grab some food (Mmm, bangers and mash anyone?) and a pint (or two). On Sundays, there’s live traditional Irish music

In the bookstore a few weeks ago looking for serious reading (homework, you know, literature, business Web books for work, personal finance, maybe language instruction materials for the kids) and I got distracted (as usual) and ended up in the travel section, where I discovered A Year In The Merde, by Stephen Clarke. The novel […]

This couldn’t help but remind me to drop an e-mail to my college bud, wedding best man and former roommate Bill, just because he’s a grocery store manager these days, and not because he ever wore black armor and wielded a light saber… though I guess he was a pretty tough stage manager back in […]

Benjamin Kunkel critiques the modern memoir in light of the memoirs of earlier centuries – in which the writer not only related the awful things that had happened to them, but actually told about things they had done, and more importantly, wanted to do. "…When so many memoirists are busy confessing to so much, we […]

Just finished listening to an unabridged recording to The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue. This is Donohue’s first novel, and has been the subject of well-deserved critical acclaim. The language is simple and direct, and the style lies somewhere between literary fiction and fantasy, a sort of magical realism that follows two narratives

Charles McGrath takes modern, sanitized and

Via JenO at the Pop Diner … Lord of the Rings, if it had been directed by Kevin Smith, P.T. Anderson and The Wachowski Brothers. (And hey kids, language advisory…)