The Previously Unexplained Chess-Writing Link …
I've been a chess obsessive for years but it's only thanks to the great Charles Simic that I can begin to justify all the wasted hours ... There’s something else in my past that I only recently realized contributed to...
Panel Appearance Saturday
I will be appearing on a blogging panel at the 2012 conference of the Biographers International Organization. I'm still not completely certain why biographers would like to hear from me, but they asked, I was free, and so here we...
Worthy Readings Sidebar Updated!
The Worthy Readings sidebar has been updated through July with a slew of new readings ranging from Richard Ford to Dana Spiotta to Charles Yu to ... Steve Almond. You read that right. Click through and check out all the...
Ben Fountain Reading At Vromans – Recommended!
Ben Fountain is in town this evening to read from his long awaited novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. You can find all the details about the reading here. Adam Langer's glowing review can be found here. The book's not...
SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT – Irony, Self-Awareness and Troy Patterson
In his review of John Leonard's greatest hits collection, Troy Patterson - without a shred of irony or apparent self-knowledge - approvingly quotes the master: "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she...
FACT CHECKING GRAHAM GREENE
Apropos l'affaire D'Agata, I came across this amusing and illuminating bit in John McPhee's paean to fact checkers, Checkpoints, collected in the superb Silk Parachutes (FSG 2010): In "The Third Man," in the immortal Ferris-wheel scene high above postwar Vienna,...
ANATOMY OF A TWEET: Deconstructing the awesomeness of Bret Easton Ellis
I'm a quick study ...
L.A. EVENT – CLAIRE BIDWELL SMITH
If you're in the Santa Monica area Thursday night (or even if you're not), do stop by the Barnes and Noble where Claire Bidwell Smith will be reading from her lauded memoir The Rules of Inheritance.
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM: RANDOM READING
I tried a new exercise with my Novel IV students a few weeks ago. I brought a dozen books to class, pretty randomly selected from the titles that arrive every month. I did limit the selection to novels, and tried...
WHY I CAVED
After years of resisting the tide, I officially started using my long-dormant Twitter account today. I have some mixed feelings about this event. On the one hand, my attention span feels fractured enough already, and I'm reluctant to deform it...
L.A. EVENT – EDWARD St. AUBYN **HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**
Not sure how this one escaped my notice - when in doubt, I now blame everything on the kid - but there's a must-see reading this Sunday. Edward St. Aubyn, whose Patrick Melrose novels have been rapturously received from likes...
HERE WE GO AGAIN
It is my very own lost cause. Time after time I've taken to these pages to decry the idiocy of Elmore Leonard's inexplicably lauded 10 Rules of Writing, to absolutely no avail. No decent interval can pass before someone out...
