Monthly Archives: September 2016

Searcy, David. Shame and Wonder. Random House New York, 2014. NF/F; 09/16 Here we have essays by an older American author who seems pleased to repeat one way or another that life’s simple events have a spiritual dimension. Taking that … Continue reading →

September, 2016. Lots of people have recommended this place, and we finally got here with my gourmand brother and his diaphanously creative wife. It’s along a curving section of Keefer Street, down below (and a previously industrial tailend) of Chinatown, now … Continue reading →

Farina, Richard. Been Down so Long it Looks Like Up to Me. Penguin, New York, 1966. F;09/16. A friend handed me this in 1968 when I was in second-year university English lit. “You’ve got to read it. It’s us!” I … Continue reading →

Walter, Jess. Beautiful Ruins. HarperCollins, 2012. F;8/16. This is a charming complicated story that I read because I was impressed with a piece of the author’s short fiction, Mr Voice, included in The Best American Short Stories in  2015. There are … Continue reading →

McInerney, Jay. Bright Lights Big City. Vintage New York, 1984. F;7/16. McInerney was a notoriously hard-living young writer who made his name with this novel which is written in the second person (“you woke up and wondered where you had … Continue reading →

Boyle, T C and Pitlor, Heidi eds. The Best American Short Stories 2015. Houghton Mifflin New York, 2015. F;8/16. Lots of fun, in the mood as I was after reading one of Wallace’s short fiction collections. These are taken from … Continue reading →

Max, D T. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Penguin Viking, New York, 2012. NF;7/16. I didn’t make any notes on this book which I read during a binge on some of Wallace’s … Continue reading →