Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper
- Happy Birthday, Edward Herrmann
- “The rhythm is jazz.” — Hart Crane
- “When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes, and that is my idea.” — Ernest Hemingway
- July 20, 1969: Tranquility
- “The reality is you don’t arrive, you don’t have a crone ceremony and suddenly get wisdom.” — Olympia Dukakis
- R.I.P. Jennifer Finch
- “I think something once broken and put back together is even stronger.” — Jared Padalecki
- “Didacticism is the death of art.” — poet Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
- “Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now. Pure Gonzo journalism.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Recent Comments
- sheila on “Why can’t people take me as a regular singer without making a bogeyman out of me?” — Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
- Ken on “Why can’t people take me as a regular singer without making a bogeyman out of me?” — Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
- sheila on Physical Media Booklet Essay: Being scholarly about movies that don’t exist
- sheila on Physical Media Booklet Essay: Being scholarly about movies that don’t exist
- sheila on R.I.P. Jennifer Finch
- sheila on “I think something once broken and put back together is even stronger.” — Jared Padalecki
- Lyrie on Physical Media Booklet Essay: Being scholarly about movies that don’t exist
- Lyrie on “I think something once broken and put back together is even stronger.” — Jared Padalecki
- Lyrie on R.I.P. Jennifer Finch
- Lyrie on “I think something once broken and put back together is even stronger.” — Jared Padalecki
- sheila on “I’m not a yesterday’s woman. I’m a tomorrow’s woman.” — Barbara Stanwyck
- sheila on Happy Birthday, Chips Moman
- Ken on “I’m not a yesterday’s woman. I’m a tomorrow’s woman.” — Barbara Stanwyck
- Tony McCrorie on Happy Birthday, Chips Moman
- sheila on “Reality is diabolical.” — Ingmar Bergman
- sheila on Happy Birthday, Thomas Mitchell
- sheila on “Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm
- Roger Green on “Reality is diabolical.” — Ingmar Bergman
- Xandra de Vocht on The Books: “The Great Nebula in Orion” (Lanford Wilson)
- Bryan Summers on Happy Birthday, Thomas Mitchell
-
Tag Archives: John McGahern
Review: That They May Face the Rising Sun (2025)
It seems fitting to have been assigned this one to review: a film adaptation of John McGahern’s novel of the same name. John McGahern is one of my favorite authors – I’ve written a lot about him – his Amongst … Continue reading
2014 Books Read
2014 was a good reading year. I re-read a lot of favorites, including Rebecca West’s 1200 page Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. There was a fun mix of re-reads and new stuff, of fiction and non-fiction. My year of being … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, Amongst Women, Anjelica Huston, August Strindberg, books read, E.B. White, England, Evelyn Waugh, friends, George Orwell, Henry James, In Cold Blood, Inherent Vice, Ireland, John Cassavetes, John McGahern, Love Streams, Mark Helprin, Mark Twain, Patrick O'Brian, Rebecca West, Roger Angell, Seamus Heaney, Sweden, Truman Capote, Wales, war
9 Comments
2010 Books Read
Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Andrei Tarkovsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Annie Proulx, books read, Dava Sobel, David O. Selznick, David Thomson, E.M. Forster, Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, Ireland, Jane Langton, Jaws, Joan Blondell, John Banville, John McGahern, Mark Helprin, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Peter Bogdanovich, Rebecca West, Roman Polanski, Ron Chernow, Russia, Serbia, Shirley Jackson, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, Warren Beatty, William Shakespeare
37 Comments
The Barracks, by John McGahern
John McGahern, who died in 2006, wrote six novels, and a memoir. He was clearly meticulous about his writing (to quote my father: “There’s no fat in his books”), and his evocation of the quickly-disappearing rural life in Ireland is … Continue reading
Book Questionnaire Full of Shame, Loathing and Lying
I can’t remember where I initially found this questionnaire, but in re-doing my Categories I found the questions saved in Drafts. I had obviously seen them somewhere, and wanted to answer them eventually. Thought I’d bring it out now. Haven’t … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A Tale of Two Cities, Billy Budd, By the Lake, Charles Dickens, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Hopeful Monsters, John McGahern, Paul Zindel, Philip K. Dick, Ryszard Kapuściński, The End of the Affair, The Great Gatsby, The Pigman, The Shipping News, War and Peace
39 Comments
Dad On John McGahern: “There’s no fat in his books.”
Me: “He didn’t write many books, did he?” Dad: “No. He spent all his time paring them down, cutting out everything that didn’t fit. There’s no fat in his books.” Finished The Pornographer today in a rowdy Irish pub, got … Continue reading
The Pornographer, by John McGahern
I’m tearing through The Pornographer, a novel by John McGahern. I posted about it yesterday. I am mortified by the book. Not the frank sex scenes, which I love – he writes them quite well (not to mention the interesting … Continue reading
The Pornographer, by John McGahern
I’m reading The Pornographer, a novel by John McGahern. I read his By the Lake last year (excerpt here), and his Amongst Women is one of my favorite books (excerpt here) – so I decided to go back and fill … Continue reading