Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Blogging Archive
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When the Flock Changed: David Foster Wallace & Maud Newton
Posted on August 23, 2011 | 8 CommentsWhy can't Maud Newton level with us about her bilious biases? A thorough dismantling of her reactionary David Foster Wallace/blogging piece for the New York Times. -
The Evils of HTML Giant
Posted on April 14, 2010 | 3 CommentsLadies and gentlemen, I have written a 10,000 word essay outlining, in intricate and long-winded form, every single evil that the blog HTML Giant has committed. The proprietors have molested... -
Interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland
Posted on October 5, 2009 | 170 CommentsThis morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials would be revised in relation to bloggers. The new guidelines (PDF) specified that... -
A Taxonomy of Book Bloggers (2009 Edition)
Posted on July 24, 2009 | 15 CommentsSince the book blogging world changes so frequently — with its first waves and second waves, its stormy internecine battles, and its endless capacity for argument over trivial subjects —... -
Kindle Bloggers Become Amazon’s Bitches
Posted on May 20, 2009 | 8 CommentsThis blog will not be distributed through Kindle. I cannot possibly give away so many of my rights for a mere 30% of the cut. To put this into perspective,... -
The Covenant
Posted on March 17, 2009 | No CommentsSome years ago, not long after Herb Caen’s death, I decided to make a series of pilgrimages to the San Francisco Public Library to dust my hands and wrangle microfilm.... -
Amazon Profiting Incommensurately Off Bloggers?
Posted on February 25, 2009 | 2 CommentsAs I pointed out more than a year ago, Amazon has been offering monthly blog subscriptions to Kindle readers, but, in some cases, it hasn’t been paying the bloggers a... -
Responding to Dixon: August 14
Posted on August 14, 2008 | 1 CommentDarby: About these protean layouts of yours, I recognize the compulsions of a fellow neurotic. Really, sir, it’s the words that count more than anything else. And it seems to... -
Is Thomas Hawk a First-Rate Jerk?
Posted on August 12, 2008 | 13 CommentsThomas Hawk is at it again. But this time, he’s determined to smear a man’s reputation based on his own decidedly subjective account. For those who haven’t followed Hawk’s blog,... -
Message Back to R. McCrum: We’ll Keep on Bloggin’
Posted on May 25, 2008 | 1 CommentSyntax of Things: “Did I miss the seminar or not read the pamphlet that listed the qualifications of responsible book reviewing? Damn, I’ll have to Google around for it. Then... -
Sven Birkerts and the Frightening Fitzroya
Posted on April 27, 2008 | 6 CommentsBeing wrong is wonderful! It’s a bit like accidentally walking into a fitzroya and suddenly realizing that there’s this large evergreen that you didn’t know about. Suddenly, you’re forced to... -
Tony Pierce Moves to the LA Times
Posted on December 1, 2007 | 1 CommentNow this is a very interesting move, and I hope that Mr. Pierce will be granted some major technical flexibility to dramatically reconfiguring all of the blogs. The main problem... -
A Message from the Bloglines Plumber
Posted on November 28, 2007 | 2 Comments -
The Entirely Unsuitable Guide to Book Blogs
Posted on November 9, 2007 | 10 CommentsBeing something of an involved party on the subject, I’ve finally had a chance to read Rebecca Gillieron and Catheryn Kilgarriff’s The Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs. I’m wondering why... -
Blogging is Hardly Stalingrad, But the Point is Taken
Posted on September 7, 2007 | 3 CommentsJessica Coen: “Eventually, the constant criticism (coming at me and from me), combined with the isolation of working alone from home, began to take its toll. I’ve never been a... -
Do Today’s Blogs Owe Much to Izzy Stone?
Posted on July 15, 2007 | No CommentsNeiman Watchdog: “Although Stone worked for decades vigorously tweaking authority as a daily journalist, editorial writer and essayist, it was in 1953 that he created the perfect outlet for his... -
Gloaty Blogger Rebus (Self-Link!)
Posted on May 17, 2007 | No CommentsHint: It’s not Bugwan Bardson point storm. The solution is. -
Bloggers Like to Gloat, Link to Themselves, Eat Small Children
Posted on May 17, 2007 | 1 CommentAccording to the most shrill of the Critical Lumpians (see Ed’s post below), we’re just a bunch of self-linking, traffic-craving, nose-picking, basement-dwelling maggots. Well, I’m proud to be a maggot... -
Blogging Entrepreneur in Action
Posted on March 21, 2007 | No CommentsI’m Jason Calacanis! Come to my seminar! Look at the choices I have today! Would you like to have choices like this, someday? I became a multimillionaire from blogging. They... -
Newspapers Shifting to Paid Content Model?
Posted on March 15, 2007 | No CommentsFrom MarketWatch: By putting a price on the Reader, The Times creates another stream of revenue, albeit a small one, to add to what it’s generating from subscriptions to its... -
Why Vox is Worthless to Any Thinking Blogger
Posted on January 17, 2007 | 4 CommentsMaxine Clarke: “I concluded that Vox must be going for the ‘young’ market — free (unlike Typepad), easy to use, high-level modules that don’t allow much personal variation on a... -
Speculation on Nick Douglas
Posted on November 14, 2006 | No Comments10 Zen Monkeys collates the theories, getting several email responses back from Denton, Congdon, and Douglas himself. -
Web Negative 2.0
Posted on November 13, 2006 | No CommentsNick Douglas has apparently been shitcanned from Valleywag and all I got was this crummy T-shirt (and one of the worst blog designs I think I’ve ever seen). -
Blogging Worse Than Masturbation in the Eyes of the Church?
Posted on October 13, 2006 | 1 CommentThe Restored Church of God: “Should teenagers and others in the Church express themselves to the world through blogs? Because of the obvious dangers; the clear biblical principles that apply;... -
Now If Only Deborah Treisman Would Start Blogging
Posted on October 3, 2006 | 1 CommentHoward Junker, editor of the swank San Francisco literary mag ZYZZYVA, is now blogging. (via Madam Mayo) -
Pointless Tests on a Moment’s Notice
Posted on September 15, 2006 | 4 CommentsIn response to this nonsense, which suggests that bloggers who are “used to cranking out pointless rants on a moment’s notice” are worse than “highschoolers [sic]” “well-practiced at responding to... -
Just When I Was About to Dig Up Some Guest Bloggers…
Posted on September 12, 2006 | No CommentsWall Street Journal: “Yet for the sliver of people whose livelihood depends on the blog — whether they are conservative, liberal or don’t care — stepping away from the keyboard... -
Blue Goes Blue for Chron
Posted on August 30, 2006 | No CommentsViolet Blue doesn’t like me very much, but I’m happy to learn that she’s landed a gig as the Chron‘s sex columnist. Kudos to Phil Bronstein for recognizing Violet Blue... -
Either That Or It’s a MSM Conspiracy!
Posted on August 23, 2006 | No CommentsEditor and Publisher: “Asked how often they visited blogs, the responses from the 78% who said they used the Web, came out this way: frequently 10%, occasionally 9%, rarely 17%,... -
Bloggers Triumph Over Mainstream Media on Mere Hunch
Posted on August 9, 2006 | 1 CommentUsing deductive prowess, several bloggers determined that Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph, “The Battle of Iwo Jima,” may have been staged by Rosenthal. The bloggers once again triumphed over the mainstream...