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Tag Archives: fiction
“All my work is about uncovering, especially uncovering of voices that speak without governance, or that speak without being heard.” — Seamus Deane
“So broken was my father’s family, that it felt to me like a catastrophe you could live with only if you kept it quiet, let it die down of its own accord like a dangerous fire … I felt we … Continue reading
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” — Charles Dickens
DICKENS MISCELLANIA: QUOTES AND APPRECIATIONS My favorite Dickens? Oliver Twist was my gateway drug. I read it when I was 11. Because I was obsessed with the movie. Tale of Two Cities came next. Read when I was 15 in … Continue reading
“I don’t think my books should be in prison libraries.” — Patricia Highsmith
It’s Patricia Highsmith’s birthday today. He wouldn’t have killed someone just to save Derwatt Ltd. or even Bernard, Tom supposed. Tom had killed Murchison because Murchison had realized, in the cellar, that he had impersonated Derwatt. Tom had killed Murchison … Continue reading
“I look back on my life and draw one great generalization: IT WAS MY REFUSAL TO TAKE CAUTIOUS ADVICE THAT MADE ME.” — Jack London
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent … Continue reading
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Shakespeare, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, Yugoslavia
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“Carelessness on the part of revolutionaries has always been the best aid the police have.” — Victor Serge
Ever since my late-in-the-day discovery of Victor Serge (whose birthday it is today), a man I should have discovered much MUCH earlier, considering my interest in totalitarian regimes / dissident voices / revolution / Russia – I have read as … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged fiction, Memoirs, nonfiction, Russia, Victor Serge, war
2 Comments
“The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
Poet/novelist Jean Toomer was born on this day in 1894. He died in 1967. He saw some shit. Toomer’s family tree encompasses the diversity of pre-and-post-Civil War South: slaves, freemen, black, white. His father, Nathan Toomer, was born into slavery. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, fiction, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, poetry
1 Comment
“Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.” — W.H. Auden on Jane Austen
“The little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush.” — Jane Austen on her writing In 2020 – which feels like it was 1,000 years ago, I reviewed the new film adaptation … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, fiction, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Truman Capote, W.H. Auden
6 Comments
“The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed.” — Edna O’Brien
Today is the birthday of the great Irish writer Edna O’Brien, who just died this past summer at the age of 93. I came to her Country Girls trilogy fairly young. I was in college. I think that might be … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, writers
Tagged documentary, Edna O'Brien, fiction, Ireland, women directors
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“I have written myself into the house.” — Shirley Jackson, during her 1962 breakdown
“When I first used to write stories and hide them away in my desk, I used to think that no one had ever been so lonely as I was and I used to write about people all alone…I thought I … Continue reading