The most difficult part of moving for me is selecting which books to take with me. I now have libraries in different collections, spread throughout the country. As a practice I try to to take only 10 books (yea yea,…
Polysyllabic Spree: June 2010
Brandon, John. (2010). Citrus county. San Fransisco: McSweeney’s Rectangulars. Gordimer, Nadine. (1982). Six feet of country. NY: Penguin Books. Hartwell, David G., ed. (1989). The world treasury of science fiction. NY: Little, Brown and Company. Haug, Frigga. (1992). Beyond female…
Librarians
Too funny, if only because it is so true… When Mr. Hibma pulled into the lot, he saw a fleet of cars adorned with Citrus Middle School parking stickers. He stepped around a bush and peeked in a window. Librarians.…
Citrus County by John Brandon
This is the first book in The Rumpus’ Book Club. I guess I will be sharing my thoughts as I make my way through it. The back blurb: There shouldn’t be a Citrus County. Teenage romance should be difficult, but…
Polysyllabic Spree
She [the Minerva] floats only because boys mind her pumps all the time, she remains upright and intact only because highly intelligent men never stop watching the sky and the seas around her. Every line and sail decays with visible…
The Rejectionist 2010
A marvelous sentence that needs to be shared. A review of Houllebecq’s HP Lovecraft biography contains this marvelous insight: It doesn’t take a Freud to recognize that a man who writes constantly about decay, pestilence, and a fishy-smelling menace continually…
Elbaum 2002
Image via Wikipedia I finished the Elbaum book and I am still trying to figure out my impression of it. So instead here are a few impression. He knows his stuff. The research strikes me as meticulous and thorough. I…
Vollmann’s Europe Central
I had started this book once before, or so I guess from the marginalia in the first few pages. I have no recollection. I can tell from the first few pages that it is a heady tome and probably untenable…
Cuomo 1996
Image by Dunechaser via Flickr I propose that the constancy of militarism and its effects on social reality be reintroduced as a crucial locus of contemporary feminist attentions, and that feminists emphasize how wars are eruptions and manifestations of omnipresent…
Franzen 2006
Image via Wikipedia I am constantly awed by the strange places I will come across an engagement or a novel argument. When I lived in Vegas back in 1996-97 I once had Mormon missionaries knock on my door. I invited…