We’ve all read novels by authors who have a way with words, know how to shape a sentence, generate tension…all the good stuff, right? But what about when that good stuff keeps going and going until what felt like a perfect balance turns into words and plot piling on unchecked? I’m left either annoyed or crushed under the weight of too much verbiage. It’s at that point ... Read More...
How to Survive a Summer
Will Dillard’s film studies dissertation is making his life miserable because he can’t seem to finish it. In fact, finishing anything after the summer he spent at Camp Levi when he was fifteen, has been difficult. Now, a movie, based on a memoir about the camp has come out and whatever semblance of motivation and forward motion there was in Will comes to a complete ... Read More...
Thrilled to Death: Siracusa and Dear Mr. M
This is the type of post that should wait until Halloween, but honestly who wants to wait for reviews of the kind of reading that keeps you up all night? Here are two recent releases that fit the bill for fall creepster reading. Both involve death and one thrilled me. Although you never really know in a marriage who is responsible for what, do ... Read More...
The Empty Glass
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic stars in American history. Numerous non-fiction books detail her life but it is the fiction that provides more fodder for the rumors about her death; namely because it can draw on the smallest of details and create a story around them. If it sounds like I’m getting ready to slam this genre, relax. I’m a fan of it, albeit not of the ... Read More...
