I've returned from a hiking trip in Utah's Zion and Bryce National Parks. On the journey, I met Kindle readers passionate about their beloved e-reader, yet print books held the majority when it came to what travelers were carrying.
Category: Other Books
Why “My Dog Tulip” raises the fur
J.R. Ackerley's 1956 memoir published by the New York Review of Books Classic Series charms some readers and disgusts others. It's now an animated film, coming to theaters this fall. Here are my thoughts about the book, with links to movie trailers.
Missing the masterpiece
How do you know you've read a masterpiece? Over and over in Tom Grime's memoir "Mentor," the word from various sources planted itself on Frank Conroy's "Stop-Time." I read Conroy's classic, but too quickly and carelessly.
Braving my escape into Y.A. novels
A recent essay in The New York Times Book Review explains why more adults are reading Young Adult novels. It sheds light on my own desire to read books written for kids, a tenacious desire I've resisted, until now.
The Picasso of graphic design
The Guardian published a list of top 10 graphic design books this week. #7 on the list is "Paul Rand: A Designer's Art." A long time ago, I received this Rand book as a gift. Here's the story and a short description of this now out-of-print classic.
“Telling It Like It Was,” August 1968
A paperback book I purchased about the Chicago Riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Nostalgia for the 1960s made me do it.
Carson McCullers’ eyes on me
In a Hitchcock movie, her eyes in this photo would move, and she'd reach out and touch me.
Books from the week: war, mud & more
Some books I came across this week during my usual perusal of all things about books.
Six short story books & a big prize
Cork, Ireland hosts an annual literary festival in honor of native son and acclaimed Irish short story writer Frank O'Connor. With the festival comes an award for the best short story collection published the year before the award is given. The short list has been announced, and it offers up great selections for good reads.
I discovered Wakoski’s “Greed”
Confessional poet Diane Wakoski wrote "The Collected Greed Parts 1-13" over several years. She writes in the introduction that she wanted to pontificate about life, to moralize, and yet somehow to write a poem which would have a nobility to it. And so she did.
No beach reads here
Seven books I'll be reading on my patio these first weeks of summer.
It’s about the soldiers
Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy" is a military account of the French Indochina War published and revised in the early 1960s. I've got a book collecting urge to buy it. Not a paperback added to a cart on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Borders, rather a signed, rare edition from an antiquarian bookseller. Here's why, and what's going on in my gently mad bibliophilic thinking.
Once lost, now the 1970 winner is found
The winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize, awarded to a novel published in 1970, was announced last week. It's the first book of J. G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy.
Be confident, be creative
I read about this new book on creativity and drawing while trolling the Web. I bought it immediately. Impulse purchase? Maybe, but I'm looking forward to reading it. You can check out the first 33 pages on the publisher's Web site.
Vampire booze
Here's my excuse for why I haven't finished Grahame-Smith's best-selling vampire novel about Abraham Lincoln.
The Longest Chapter 