Janwillem van de Wetering's Grijpstra & De Gier mystery novel, Just a Corpse at Twilight was the book I took to SHU-WPF Residency, where I got through exactly 52 pages in the six days I was on campus. Distantly do I remember when the residencies were a reading vacation for me.

Ah, well.

I've loved this quirky series of ( Read more... )

        My third book of 2014 is the rather oddly titled, and mostly mysterious The Glorious Nosebleed, by Edward Gorey. It's an abecedary poem, in which each line ends with an -ly adverb, and there is a full page illustration for each line. Since the title had no adverb -- and there is an appropriate cover illustration, but no explanation -- your ( Read more... )

        Zoo City, by South African writer Lauren Beukes, reads like a cross between William Gibson (who blurbed the book) and Ian MacDonald. Since both of them are on my read-everything-they-do list, Beukes may have to be added to it, as well.

I'm planning to put this on my World Literature reading list, should I teach it again, so I won't ( Read more... )

        People assume that because I'm a writer, and because I teach writing, that I'm fully familiar with the how-to-write literature. Uh, no. My students have to review at least one how-to book per term, so I read a lot of reactions to these works, but I almost never find both the time and the inclination to read them. On more than one occasion ( Read more... )

         The Wallet of Kai Lung, by Ernest Bramah, is a book I picked up chasing a recommendation in Noel Perrin's bibliophile classic A Reader's Delight. The book that Perrin actually recommends is the second of the five or so Kai Lung collections, called Kai Lung's Golden Hours. But when I finally came across a copy of that one, the dealer also ( Read more... )

        a theory of everything, Mary Crockett Hill, is another Autumn House poetry collection. I'd hoped to read it while I was teaching the poetry course, but that didn't happen.

I will express relief that the rape-incest-child-abuse theme was less prominent in this collection than in other recent reading. (Again, I have nothing against ( Read more... )

         Willa Cather's My Ántonia, a candidate for the next time I teach American Literature 1915-present, is a book I've been worrying away at for a month now. Not because I didn't like it, but because it's a contemplative read, and I've rarely had a contemplative hour these last weeks.

I have to admit that I just haven't read enough ( Read more... )

         My 75th book of the year (thereby equaling last year's total) is The Best American Essays 2010, Christopher Hitchens, ed.. Yes, I'm a few years behind on that series. And to my surprise, since I'm a regular reader of essay collections, this is the only book of essays I've read this calendar year. Haven't even opened a John Burroughs ( Read more... )

         James Durand, An Able Seaman of 1812, was (when it came out in 1820) entitled The Life and Adventures of James R. Durand, During a Period of Fifteen Years, from 1801 to 1816: in which Time He Was Impressed on Board the British Fleet, and Held in Detestable Bondage for More than Seven Years. Including an Account of a Voyage to the ( Read more... )

         Ravage, Jan Beatty's limited edition 2012  chapbook, worked better for me than her recent collection, The Switching Yard. All but two of the poems in this chapbook also appear in The Switching Yard, but here they feel more equivalent in tone, and less repetitive.
         The chapbook poems hit like a series of heavy jabs, with no feints ( Read more... )