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Tag Archives: nonfiction
“Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet.” — Ryszard Kapuściński
It’s the birthday today of one of my favorite writers, Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuściński. His death in 2007 was devastating to me. I went to the memorial tribute at the New York Public Library, hosted by his close … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Armenia, Ethiopia, Iran, nonfiction, Poland, politics, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, war
7 Comments
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
12 Comments
“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
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Warren Beatty, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
October 2025 Snapshots
This fall was way too busy for me to write anything, anywhere. I spent three weeks in New York in October, a lot of back and forth, for screenings, meetings with friends, and then the Frankenstein New York premiere where … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, Personal
Tagged Emily Dickinson, Frankenstein, friends, Guillermo del Toro, nonfiction, poetry, Robert Kaplan, sci-fi, snapshots, Ulysses
11 Comments
“Here I was, stuck in the middle of a dying nation with all these funny looking children who didn’t even realize the world was coming to an end, and now on top of everything else they expected me to turn my room into a hippie crash pad!” — Lester Bangs
It’s his birthday today. A lot of ink has been spilled on Lester Bangs, including on this site. My feelings for him are as chaotic as his writing style. There are times I read him and I think, almost wildly, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Music, On This Day, writers
Tagged David Bowie, essays, Lester Bangs, nonfiction, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones
6 Comments
“When religion defines morality, the wall between church and state comes to be seen as immoral.” — Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis’ years as a rock critic were a blip, comparatively, to the rest of her work, deep and engaging pieces on feminism, economics, anti-Semitism, revolution, mass consumption, Marxism, and … believe it or not … pleasure. Pleasure was a … Continue reading
“The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” — Joan Didion
It’s her birthday today. Someone said that Didion’s (seemingly) simple sentences are like a perfect puzzle. If you remove one line from a paragraph, everything falls apart. Her writing is that well-constructed. She was a notoriously painstaking self-editor. She would … Continue reading
“People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don’t need politics, they have jobs.” — P.J. O’Rourke
It’s his birthday today. P.J. O’Rourke’s sentences were masterpieces. Airtight. For example: “Wherever there’s injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it’s happening.” Or: “Sloths move at the speed … Continue reading
“A mind which really lays hold of a subject is not easily detached from it.” — journalist Ida Tarbell
It’s a good day to think about unchecked power. Power needs people out there to check it. It’s a good day to acknowledge that the world – its money and resources – is dominated by a multi-national cadre of fat … Continue reading