Authors--Myself and Others
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Robert Earle
- Small Towns into Slums
- Einstein by Walter Isaacson
- First Published Review of She Receives the Night by British writer/reviewer Jack Messenger
- Andrew Jackson and…Donald Trump?
- The Saddest (Oddest) Story
- Paul Auster & the Mystery of the Double
- Are We Happy Now, Boys and Girls?
- She Receives the Night–Free Review Copies
- Eros, Life & Words
- Living Lies
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Monthly Archives: June 2013
Homeland by Sam Lipsyte
Homeland by Sam Lypsyte raises the question, for me at least, of whether it is wise to be part of a reading group. I would not have read this novel if it weren’t proposed by the guy who had the … Continue reading
Samuel Johnson by James Boswell (Volume 1)
When you major in what is called “English” at college, certain inconvenient figures present themselves. One is Ben Jonson who is inconvenient because it is so much more rewarding and taxing to spend your time on Shakespeare, although Jonson also … Continue reading
The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing
The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing is not, as the dust jacket copy states, a collection of “four short novels.” It’s a bound volume containing three long short stories and a concluding novella, “A Love Child.” And with one exception, it’s very, … Continue reading
Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard
Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard is far from a thriller–as the dust jacket suggests–and it’s not a mystery, so I guess it’s a crime novel, populated by criminals with criminal intent and carbonated with the occasional fizz of a murder. … Continue reading
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Blue Nights is a memoir that focuses on the terrible impact the death of Joan Didion’s daughter, Quintana Roo, had on Didion–following shortly after the death of Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunn–and yet encompasses broader swaths of Didion’s life and her … Continue reading
Posted in The relationship between fiction and fact
Tagged adoption, childhood, early death, family love, old age, parenting, poetic style
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The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
The Lost Weekend, a 1944 novel by Charles Jackson, is a powerfully rendered and therefore sickening account of a binge conducted by 33-year-old Don Birnham, a sometimes writer who suffers alcoholism’s ghastly and degrading effects. Birnham is portrayed as a … Continue reading
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
One sometimes has the idea — from general discussion often relating to the many and ongoing wars since — that WWI got started when Europe’s leaders weren’t paying attention to one another or realistically assessing the powder keg upon which … Continue reading
Posted in The relationship between fiction and fact
Tagged fog of war, Germany in Europe, just war, preemptive war, WWI
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