Sometimes my wife will ask me how I came to be interested in reading a particular book. Oftentimes I have no answer which could be regarded as linear thought: no, I didn’t read a review of it in The New York Times Book Review. No, it wasn’t because I saw it resting in a book […]
As I read Ha Jin’s biography of Li Bai, regarded as China’s greatest poet, I was reminded of a literary character from the Western tradition: Don Quixote de la Mancha. Both men were confused romantics, wielding both the pen and the sword; both were restless and itinerant; both tilted at windmills. Ha Jin already has […]
I’m often puzzled by the contemporary craving for instant need/want fulfillment. The media types seem to have turned the American populace into trained monkeys, clamoring for a seat at a new movie the first day it’s released or signing to get a publication-day copy of the latest book so you can be the first to […]
Let’s begin by acknowledging a distinct sense of irony in the author’s choice of title for his unique collection of linked short-stories. They tell the story of human evolution, told from the philosophical perspective of Hamlet’s oft-quoted “What a piece of work is man.” What a piece of work is right. In Mixed Harvest, Rob […]
I met David Lincoln at the annual Association of Rhode Island Authors conference in December 2019, where sat in his booth amid stacks of Vogel. I’d been away from our Fictional Café booth for half an hour or so, walking up and down the aisles lined with people selling their books. Lots of authors. Lots […]
For reasons which remain stubbornly unclear, this novel rested on my bookshelf for about 14 years. How could I not have known what a rare and delightful read awaited me? Blue, the heroine-narrator of this tale (I love that her name is Blue; in all its connotations, it’s perfect), whose sense of the ironic, the […]
Some authors have the remarkable gift of writing one great novel after another. Although an accomplished author with a definite satirical bent, today Charles Portis is remembered for only one novel: True Grit. And justly so, for while it portrays the rough life on the prairies of America, Portis often has his tongue firmly in […]