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“Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion
(This is a guest post by Christie C.) “She’s less than sure if her heart has come to stay in San Jose and her neverborn child haunts her now as she speeds down the freeway she tries her luck with...
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“Just Kids” by Patti Smith
Photo of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, taken on Coney Island. (This is a guest review by Christie C.) I think my favorite thing about Patti Smith is that she’s a believer. I don’t just mean that...
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Runemarks, by Joanne Harris
It is in an interesting book that is bookended by Ragnarok and Apocalypse. Runemarks is set 500 years after the Twilight of the Gods, and the Norse pantheon is scattered or dead. Or both. Maddy Smith...
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Alice in Zombieland, by Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook
The first thing you should notice about Alice in Zombieland is the order of the authors- Lewis Carroll is first, and Nickolas Cook is (a distant) second. That is because everything that is interesting,...
View ArticleLiterary therapy: “La Vita Nuova,” short fiction by Allegra Goodman
This is a guest post by Christie C. I was having one of those evenings. For the knots in my shoulders and back, I contemplated getting a massage from the Chinese folks who used to be next to the Dollar...
View Article“Mermaid Fever,” a story from Steven Millhauser’s new collection, “Dangerous...
[This is a guest post by Christie C.] The writer Steven Millhauser illuminates the shadowy nether-realms of human consciousness. Not the sinister, sordid stuff–but the stuff that we might not give a...
View ArticleA Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
[This is a review by Christie C, who will contribute more articles in the future.] Yesterday evening I attended writer Lorrie Moore’s book reading at the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington,...
View ArticleThe Translated Man, by Chris Braak
In the Sepulchral city of Trowth an aged, ill junkie by the name of Beckett and his trusty sidekicks, the callow Valentine and the blind yet clairaudient Skinner, attempt to solve a Mysterious Murder-...
View ArticleThe Devil’s Delusion, by David Berlinski
From the jacket, D. Berlinski has taught both math and philosophy at the university level. Which makes my head hurt, because the logic errors that accumulate like autumn leaves crackle underfoot as he...
View ArticleScratch Beginnings, by Adam Shepard
I heard about this book when the blog Get Rich Slowly interviewed the author and he said “Don’t buy my book. Email me, and and I’ll send you a digital copy.” (He now has a link to a direct download.) I...
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