some reflections on what I did (and didn’t) read in 2007

Everyone, it seems, is offering their year-end book lists, and here I am doing the same.
This year I read more fiction than nonfiction, which is usual for me. I read a lot of short story collections this year, more than usual, and I have to say that those collections were among the best things [...]

Christmas rundown

I’m back from the East Coast and the blur of family activity that is Christmas. It’s rainy and cold in San Francisco, but somehow that seems brighter than the leafless brown scenery we saw at home — an actual winter landscape. Our part of California has seasons, but they are subtle and the current one [...]

Reading material for the holidays

I stopped at my local bookstore* yesterday to pick up something to read for my flight back east for the holidays. I usually bring my laptop to entertain myself on long flights — I write, mess around with Photoshop, that sort of thing. Occasionally I will watch a movie. But this time, I’ve decided not [...]

The Road not taken.

I don’t think I can finish Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Despite its bestseller status, despite the awards.*
It’s too much. Too horrific, depressing, and dark. As they say in MFA workshops (well, in many of mine, anyway) when the story/memoir is too heavy for too long: there’s no relief for the reader.
When I read the blurb [...]

the digital age woke me up

I keep reading articles that use the mysterious phrase “the digital age,” as in, “we live in the digital age.”
As in, for example today’s NY Times magazine, in an article about the growing popularity of buying handmade items and crafting:
–”‘Buying handmade helps us reconnect.’ The idea is a digital-age version of artisanal culture — that [...]

Welcome.

As you can see, I’ve moved my blog to a free WordPress blog. It was time for a change, and now I’ve got a new blog name and everything.

Rainy night, waiting for a train.

We’re having winter weather in San Francisco, which means it’s raining. A persistent drizzle all day, but now, late, a downpour. Tonight I was out with a friend and after, waiting in the dark for a train on a quiet street, I got soaked and thought of this.

How do you define manly, anyway?

Some Thursday things:
-The best novel ever for a man. (on the Guardian’s books blog). Must be some man-holiday that I wasn’t aware of, because I also ran across the Top 10 Most Manly Writers Ever, defined, apparently, this way: “in their fiction, the liquor is always strong, the women willing, and wildlife had best take [...]

Flat, like reflections

I’ve been reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon. It’s a book I’ve put off reading, because for a while there everyone seemed to be reading it, and also, every time I read the blurb on the back cover it seemed, well, gimmicky.
Anyway, I’m about halfway through the novel [...]

interruptions

I’d been having trouble concentrating today. I flitted from email to reading the news to attempts at drafts of articles I’m working on to phone calls and interviews to talking to the dog to blogs to photos to…just thinking.
Sometimes, it helps to limit the input.
I went to the gym, hoping a break and some exercise [...]