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How do you like my new eyePhone? Grotesque, no? It makes me think of teratomas, those legendary tumor-like growths that contain hair, teeth, and bones (sometimes even eyes). I don’t have a valid reason for showing you this photo other than to disturb your dreams. You can thank me later. I write book reviews and post […]
“There’s the imperative to keep secrets, and the imperative to have them known. How do you know that you’re a person, distinct from other people? By keeping certain things to yourself.” —Jonathan Franzen, Purity Purity Jonathan Franzen People I follow on social media no longer like Jonathan Franzen. He must have said something […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News In the last YCRT! I mentioned a Canadian comedian who is being investigated by a Quebec human rights commission over a joke. Well, get a load of this: a German comedian is being prosecuted for mocking Turkish President Erdogan. And no, not in […]
“The witch hunt stands as a cobwebbed, crowd-sourced cautionary tale, a reminder that—as a minister at odds with the crisis noted—extreme right can blunder into extreme wrong.” — Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice Adam Makos I thought Devotion an excellent book: a true story, well […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Roundup: A parent in Seminole County, Florida, lodges a complaint after her 9-year-old brings home a copy of This One Summer, a young adult graphic novel aimed at readers aged 12 to 18. The book is pulled from elementary school […]
A friend asked me to list the best books I read in 2015. I record and review the books I read on Goodreads (43 of them in 2015). Looking over this year’s list, I realized some top-rated books meant more to me than others. They are the books that left lasting impressions and made me […]
“I look at my yesterdays for months past, and find them as good a lot of yesterdays as anybody might want. I sit there in the firelight and see them all. The hours that made them were good, and so were the moments that made the hours. I have had responsibilities and work, dangers and […]
“People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you go.” — David Mitchell, Slade House Slade House David Mitchell Slade House is a companion (not exactly a sequel) to Mitchell’s previous novel The Bone Clocks, but it is a more compact and to-the-point story, as readable as anything Mitchell has written. Like […]