I love self-help and instructional/how-to books. The ones I read usually involve something like getting in touch with my soul and/or how to make chicken soup, but I’m always open to other methods of self-improvement, like how to protect yourself and still have a sense of humor while doing so… Enter Punching Tom Hanks – [...]
Category Archives: Fiction
American Weather
May 31, 2011 – 7:15 am
Dossier Contributor Charles McLeod’s first novel, American Weather, comes out this week. It is a vicious and poignantly satirical take on contemporary American corporate culture, following the inspired mind of a wealthy west coast ad man. In its current May/June issue, Poets & Writers has a pretty fascinating story (which anyone interested in the difficulties [...]
Eganism
April 18, 2011 – 7:11 pm
We’re very excited to learn that Jennifer Egan has won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her terrifically kick-ass, beautifully woven and beautifully peopled book, A Visit From the Goon Squad. It has without a doubt been one of the more talked about books of fiction in recent years and for very good reason. [...]
Twisted Fate
April 12, 2011 – 1:34 pm
Hannah Pittard’s The Fates Will Find their Way, published in January by Ecco, is about the slow, painfully circuitous journey from adolescence to adulthood. Told in the first person plural, (homage to Eugenides’ suburbia, no doubt), which manages somehow to be both hypnotic and tedious, a group of boys in an unnamed town recount growing [...]
A Book by its Cover
April 11, 2011 – 7:22 am
Here is a nice and slightly creepy series of Polish book covers from the 1970s and 80s to provide you with some visual inspiration today, courtesy of But Does It Float. Seeing images like this and reading websites like The Book Cover Archive make me realize the beauty and importance of the physical book. Cover [...]
European Summer
April 4, 2011 – 7:31 am
Sommer in Europa Bären schleichen über gefrorenen Boden und kratzen an deiner Tür. Ihnen ist kalt und sie hören die Grille, die du um den Hals trägst. Gefangen in einem ausgehöhlten Kürbis. Immer auf deiner Haut. Warm und sicher. Ihr Zirpen erinnert dich an den Sommer. Die Enge und die Dunkelheit sind nur temporär, nur [...]
Borderlines
April 1, 2011 – 9:20 am
Hypergraph Fortress A concrete giant tied down on top of a blanketed cabinet of has-been and lest-we-remember. Deliberately blinded. Senses heightened through loss of others. Located far from eye, far from heart. Invisible through the trees, exposed to icy winds, bitten by frost. Mutilated and crippled, limbs removed. The limits of reduction pushed to extremes. [...]
