Review: Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity
Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity by SARK My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was my first exposure to SARK’s writing, aside from her posters. It was a gift from a former co-worker as I left my job at the San Francisco Public Library. At the time, I didn’t feel very gracious about the transition, and so it has taken me a while to finish reading this. “Glad No Matter What” is primarily a book about the type of loss and change that surrounds the death of a loved one, but I could apply some of it to the loss and change I am currently experiencing as I transition to my new home. SARK’s unbridled enthusiasm and good nature bursts from every page, and it is difficult not to be cheered by...
Read MoreYear in review mixtape: swan fillet.
For this year in review, I want to do something different. I enjoy reading others’ questionnaires but didn’t enjoy filling my own out, and my “post the first line from the first post of each month” meme results bored me. This year just seems too big to summarize as I’ve done in the past. Once upon a time, I used to make mixtapes. I won’t pretend that they were any good, but I miss paying that level of attention to the music that moved me. So here is my year in review in mixtape form. No droll footnotes or quoted lyrics … just songs that brought pieces of me from there to here and reassembled them almost in order. I call it “swan fillet”.
Read MoreReview: We Need to Talk about Kevin
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver My rating: 3 of 5 stars I really do not know what to write about this book. On the one hand, it is a known quantity; no one starts reading it without knowing, at least in the most general sense, what it is about. On the other, it answers none of the questions the reader will have about its horrific central narrative. Shriver is, undoubtedly, a talented writer. The story made me feel ambivalence for every single character introduced, no small feat considering how easy it would be to create a maudlin mother or monstrous son. No, in fact, every single person involved has realistic foibles, making the absence of the great “why” at the end all the more appalling. It could happen to any one of...
Read MoreReview: The Dewey Decimal System: A Novel
The Dewey Decimal System: A Novel by Nathan Larson My rating: 4 of 5 stars It may be weird to say that I am a fan of dystopian near-future settings. I have a morbid fascination with bleak, sparse landscapes and crumbling infrastructure; I remain hopeful that I will never have to live in such a world, but constantly wonder what type of person I would be if I survived in one. In “The Dewey Decimal System”, Larson creates an instantly engaging survivor as a protagonist, and a compelling city in ruins around him. Larson’s staccato, fragmented style makes this a quick and brutal read with plenty of physical and emotional carnage. I only wished for more scenes in the New York Public Library, yearning for more details of this...
Read More“The Sugarplum Favor” — a Christmas story by Tad Williams
I hope you are enjoying the holiday, Festivus, Winterval, or whatever you consider this period of time. I am spending it mostly unplugged, an important thing I do not do often enough, but I had to plug back in to share this with you. I have been an avid fan of Tad Williams since discovering his Otherland saga, a science-fiction series I regularly recommend while never being able to adequately describe it. So when Deborah Beale, Tad’s co-conspirator and wife, tweeted about a new short story of his available for bloggers to post, I was absolutely thrilled to volunteer. And through the magic of the Internet, here it is. Tad Williams’ new short story collection, A Stark And Wormy Knight, is available now, worldwide, as an ebook, $4.99 (or equivalent) for...
Read MoreTiger-eyed and Tinytown.
I rediscovered this wonderful literary community online called Fictionaut, and posted an older bit of flash fiction called “Tiger-eyed”. An excerpt: The tiger-eye beads around her neck would wink at me like a nervous uncle sharing a secret with a child. They roll on her sternum like marbles. At night, on her nightstand, they whisper my secret to the patchouli-scented room. How long have they known? Also, the first draft of my short story “Tinytown” is 28% complete. The new word-counting widget in the sidebar told me! Because I am encouraged by statistics, I hope to make that 100% by the end of the year. I would like to say that I found these bits of writerly motivation from within, but it’s all the slush-pile reading. There’s...
Read MoreThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
What? No one’s posted the trailer for “The Hobbit” online yet? Let me fix that for you.
Read MoreBest. Drum solo. Ever.
We all love a good air-drum to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”, but the cumulative joy from that tiny riff can’t compare to Fred Astaire’s brilliance. (via MetaFilter)
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All I want for Festivus is more “Community”.
If you do too, snail-mail letters are the way to go. Send your heartfelt pleas to: Robert Greenblatt c/o NBC Universal 100 Universal City Plaza Universal City CA 91608 USA If you haven’t watched the show at all but are interested, now is a good time to catch up. (Hulu has the full run for American viewers.) I am still in shock that “Community” has been shelved indefinitely yet “Whitney” wasn’t just canceled outright. That is the least funny television show I have seen in approximately ever.
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