The library bookstore is my secret addiction. I don’t get to go often (at least, not in my county, what with the powers that be cutting library hours to a ridiculous degree), but when I do go, I load up. And I would say that of the books I pick up, I have about a 50% success rate. I donate the rest back, which results in a vicious circle where I’ve been known to re-buy previous rejects. (Yeah, I know.) Anyway, of that 50% success […]
To run a shtinker, you have to see the broken heart inside the deadest pan.
My first Chabon! OOOOOOF. WOW. Holy crap, you guys, did you know that his prose is exceptional and that there’s no exposition, and that he creates an utterly believable alternate timeline and a narrative that ramps up until you’re flying down the other side of the rollercoaster with no brakes? Are they all like this? Is my brain going to melt? How have I missed out this my entire adult life? Full disclosure: it took me a really long time to gather momentum with “The […]
Art is an incitement to look at our world through another’s eyes
While Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life is nearly twenty years old, the first I heard of it was on a 2015 episode of the Tim Ferriss Podcast. If you’re unfamiliar with Ferriss, he is outwardly a life-hacking blogger and podcaster. However, his deeper drive seems to be helping others live an examined life. I like that, so even though I’m not a life-hacky guy I listen to his show. On that 2015 episode, I found Botton to be especially charming, and I was […]
No man here lives a charmed life.
Okay, I’m probably operating on far too little sleep to write a coherent review, but here goes. The prose here is a luminous dream, casting it’s shadows upon the mind and lulling the reader into a warm and tranquil languidity. Coming so fast on the heels of the tenaciously awkward writing of Stephanie Meyer, the fluidity exhibited by Conrad is both refreshing in its rarity and a disheartening reminder that I can never be the writer I often dream that I am. This story has […]