Year in Reading
December 14, 2009
A Year in Reading: Ben Fountain 4
by Ben Fountain
Susan Faludi’s dissection of the national id is even almost funny in a twisted, cringe-and-shiver way, until you remember just how much death and ruination have come of America’s years-long wallow in “Hollywood heroism.”
December 13, 2009
A Year in Reading: Scott Esposito 6
by Scott Esposito
Plotwise, The Darkroom of Damocles is as riveting a detective story as I read all year, but its purpose is far beyond that of your average noir.
December 13, 2009
A Year in Reading: Hamilton Leithauser 2
by Hamilton Leithauser
In my favorite Kingsley Amis novels, like One Fat Englishman and The Green Man, the main character is just such a prick in such a funny way, you just know Amis is really enjoying writing about himself.
December 12, 2009
A Year in Reading: Patrick Brown 4
by Patrick Brown
Stoner is the sort of book that people aren’t writing right now.
December 11, 2009
A Year in Reading: Maud Newton 0
by Maud Newton
Only used copies of Theodora Keogh’s books are available these days, but it’s one of my personal missions to convince someone to return her work to print.
December 11, 2009
A Year in Reading: Marco Roth 0
by Marco Roth
If literary non-fiction is actually a genre distinct from history or reportage, not just a sales category, then Georges Perec’s W. Or The Memory of Childhood, first published in the author’s native French in 1975, must be one of its foundational texts.
