Reviews
July 29, 2009
Geometric Solids: Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd 6
by Frank Kovarik
I first heard about Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd about twenty years ago, when I was in seventh or eighth grade. My classmates and I were all reading Stephen King and Dean R. Koontz, and our English teacher attempted to guide our reading choices to higher-brow material. “I think it’s great that you’re [...]
July 28, 2009
The Past as Destiny, The Place as Self: Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul 0
by Lacar Musgrove
Lacar Musgrove Lacar Musgrove is the associate non-fiction editor of Bayou Magazine, published by the University of New Orleans, where she is pursuing an M.F.A. She has a B.A. in English from Boston University. Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City is a strange and fascinating self-portrait. The first time I read Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul [...]
July 21, 2009
Buzz’s Illustrated Book Notes: Transit Tehran 0
by Buzz Poole
Infrequent Millions contributor Buzz Poole has written for numerous publications and is the author of Madonna of the Toast. He is also the proprietor of a blog by the same name. The scene: an all-night, drug-fueled party. We could be in New York, London, Berlin or Buenos Aires, until the host turns down the music, [...]
July 16, 2009
An Errant Voice: Emily St. John Mandel’s Last Night in Montreal 0
by Anne K. Yoder
If I were using affairs as a measuring-stick to classify books, Emily St. John Mandel’s Last Night in Montreal would be a savory one-night stand, which turns into a lingering dalliance that’s later hastily broken off. The novel is an enticing read; the narration is hypnotic, intelligent, and embracing. The suspense takes the form of [...]
July 14, 2009
Recession Reading: Independence Day by Richard Ford 1
by Bezalel Stern
Bezalel Stern is a lawyer and freelance writer who lives in New York. He is currently at work on his first novel about the life and times of a Wall Street day trader. For some obvious reasons (and others not quite so obvious) around this time of year I often go back to Richard Ford’s [...]
June 22, 2009
Threads and Wires: A Review of Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin 1
by C. Max Magee
Just a few days before I embarked on Colum McCann’s new novel Let the Great World Spin, we had a movie night at the Magee household. Lauren made some ice cream and our neighbors came over with Man on Wire, the 2008 Oscar-winning documentary about Philippe Petit and his walk on a tightrope strung between [...]
