You would think that after 35 years of reading, I would know not to pay attention to marketing copy on dust jackets. You would think that after numerous instances of having perfectly good books ruined by ostentatious review blurbs, I would learn simply to read the book and let the book be itself. I would …
Category Archives: Reading Journal
Allegheny, Monongahela
Batykefer, Erinn. Allegheny, Monongahela. Los Angeles, CA: Red Hen Press, 2009. Erinn Batykefer’s Allegheny, Monongahela may be her first collection of poetry, but it displays a mastery of form and content that underscores the awards and publications listed in the book’s acknowledgements. “Dog Poem” begins the collection with an image of what it means to …
Stephen March, Strangers in the Land of Egypt
March, Stephen. Strangers in the Land of Egypt. Sag Harbor, NY: The Permament Press, 2009. Available May, 2009. There’s much to like in Stephen March’s Strangers in the Land of Egypt. The protagonist is that likable high-schooler who somehow is much more self-aware and wise than his peers but who still has lots to learn. …
The Live and Loves of Mr. Jiveass N*****
Brown, Cecil. The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger. 1969. Berkeley, CA: Frog Books, 2008. “All the publishers are interested in selling books and if you say something about sex and being a nigger then you got a bestseller” (206). C.S. Lewis writes that fiction allows you to be a thousand men whilst always …
The Book of the Unknown by Jonathan Keats
Keats, Jonathan. The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six. Random House, 2009. $13.00 When one reads “modern-day fairy tales for grown-ups, reimagined from Jewish folklore” on the back of a book, one is prepared for ironic tales in which that which we see the good side of the bad. We’ve been prepared for …
Are you now, or have you ever been…
Not only am I proud to be a college professor, I’m also proud to be friends with college professors. None more so than my good friend Ken Morefield. Having had to deal personally this semester with the negative stereotype the Evangelical sub-culture has of my profession, I’ve also had to deal with the more general …
Score “1″ for the English Major
Special thanks to Grammar Girl for pointing out the diagrammatic sentence stylings of Kitty Burns Florey as she analyzes the sentence structure of Sarah Palin. After one particularly gnarled sentence, Florey comments To me, it’s not English—it’s a collection of words strung together to elicit a reaction, floating ands and prepositional phrases (“with that vote …
Grendel’s Testimony: John Gardner’s Beowulf appendix
One evil deed missed is a loss for all eternity. –Grendel Before Wicked turned Oz on it’s head and explored the life and times of the West’s wickedest witch, there was John Gardner’s Grendel. The 1971 novel by America’s moral fictionist delves into the mind and life of English literature’s earliest monster. It’s not an …
He did, did he?: A rant
I generally think that the writing in our nation’s newspapers is abysmal and contributes to the destruction of knowledge in the hearts and minds of the average American. However, a recent Associated Press news story does more than the usual to illustrate how the pervasive “style” of journalistic writing not only shades meaning but also …
Time Bandit: Two Brothers, The Bering Sea, and One of the World’s Deadliest Jobs
Hillstrand, Andy, Jonathan Hillstrand, and Malcolm MacPherson. Time Bandit: Two Brothers, The Bering Sea, and One of the World’s Deadliest Jobs. New York: Ballantine, 2008. $25. I have an image in my head of Malcolm MacPherson sitting at a table surrounded by piles of audio-cassettes and notebooks, head in hands as he tries to figure …
