Category: bookish

Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they’re gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry’s List of Wrongs) — and it was supposed to be a sequel, this “Seven Spanish Angels,” a title I was of course ripping off, but also, it was a title that I felt would keep me honest. Becuase, I mean, you …

Here’s a bit of writing you don’t see much of anymore:

Stonehill was not in a quarrelsome mood that morning, indeed he was not snorting or blowing at all but rather in a sad, baffled state like that of some elderly lunatics I have known. Let me say quickly that the man was not crazy. My comparison is not a kind one and I would not use it except to emphasize his changed manner.

Okay, first, “Elderly Lunatics I Have Known” would be a great title for just about anything. A poetry book on equi…

It’s probably just me, but I had the hardest time getting into Amelia Beamer’s The Loving Dead. As for why I picked it up in the first place? Aside from that it was definitely ‘zombie?’ AT WHC2011, John Skipp (on an excellent zombie panel) said it was the only zombie fiction he’d read recently that was legitimately bringing something new. So, I went home ready to buy it, but then of course already had it—I’d plucked it from a shelf going solely on the Christopher Moore blurb, which i…

Let the Right One In was a vampire novel we hadn’t seen before, almost like it was trying to be an antidote to things going on in the genre. Not so much a return to form, but a reboot. And then Handling the Undead gave us a completely different kind of zombie, one which is maybe better at expressing our current set of anxieties than the flesh-eating shufflers we’re used to. So of course I came to Harbour expecting more of the same from John Ajvide Lindqvist—which is to say my expectatio…

Just a rough list of the e-book issues I can think of. And, I should say up top here that I’m pretty much addicted to my Kindle. So this isn’t an attack on e-books (which — a lot of of those are taking the form of nostalgia, right? like when we went from cassettes to CDs?). At the same time, I see nothing wrong with the already-proven technology of the paper book; I’m fairly addicted to them as well. And, yes, a lot of times this pro/con argument, it’s eviling …

this one is just as strong as THE SAD TALE OF THE BROTHERS GROSSBART. best thing I’ve read so far this summer, by far, and I kind of doubt anything else is going to live up to it. and, I’ve had this copy Jesse gave me for I don’t know how long long — too long — but kept putting it off, telling myself it was because I was arm-deep in the second BUNNYHEAD installment, that reading Jesse would shut me down there, and then telling myself it was nearly five hund…

I don’t care who you are, you only get a couple of drop-dead gorgeous stories, no matter how long you write. A couple, maybe three, that just sing, that last, that are permanent, that are indelible. Even Flannery O’Connor, even Tobias Wolff, even Stephen King. The rest can be beautiful and chiseled and have impact, do everything right, and you’ve got to keep trying to do it again, just one more time, trade whatever parts of yourself you need to get the words down right, but still — i…

My review’s up over at, you guessed it, The Cult. And it’s not really a review, either. Jumping off point? Also, I need a cool header like this, below; I’d silkscreen it on a t-shirt, wear it around. You maybe think I’m lying here, too.

Continue Reading Franzen’s Freedom

If only I had a cooler voice, but still, the story’s excellent: Paul Tremblay’s “We Will Never Live in the Castle,” as read by yours sometimes truly. From his new In the Mean Time collection, which I much recommend.

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Last summer — months after everybody else then as well — I finally hit LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and was so completely impressed. To say it better: I was so impressed that the movie adaptation seemed pale to me, incomplete, boring. Which isn’t at all to say it wasn’t a wonderful film (I dig the American remake as well), but to say that no way was it matching up to the wonderful experience the book had been.

So, now, the last few days, I devoured HANDLING THE UNDEA…