Books

Sing of Human Unsuccess

Making it with Proust, Kafka, and Clifford Odets

Jun 30 •

History, the novel, and the historical novel, with special reference to Brandon Taylor, Ross Barkan, and Elvis Costello

Jun 20 •

The Adorable Weakness of James Schuyler

Against the vibe shift

Jan 29 •

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Reading the modernists in calamitous times

Jan 10 •

Writing for Children

Advice from a former child who has learned a great deal from Fitzhugh, Dahl, Juster, Nesbitt, et al.

Jan 7 •

On Not Reading Jonathan Franzen

Nobody's best-of list

Dec 6, 2024 •

The only winning move is not to play, or: Preferring not to with Herman Melville and Matthew Broderick.

Sep 6, 2024 •

Meeting John Cheever

Dreams from my father, or: Pale Male Mid-Century Realism

Aug 12, 2024 •

Learning from Louisville

Poetry, sandwiches, and societies

Mar 9, 2024 •

Grains of the voice

Rooney, Ashbery, and the literary predicament of Generation X. Richard Hugo and John Keats stop by.

Feb 4, 2024 •

Henry James' Holographic Fiction

A theory, or overelaborate metaphor, explaining the sentences of the late work of Henry James, with a sidelong glance at Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Apr 30, 2023 •

It's been a minute

Reading my way into spring--not much Patrick O'Brian but plenty of Trollope, Cormac McCarthy, and Joshua Cohen for your reading-about-reading pleasure.

Mar 27, 2023 •

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