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The 10 Most Recent Dispatches
- The Bat Segundo Show: Agnieszka Holland
- The Bat Segundo Show: Stephen Fry
- The Bat Segundo Show: Deborah Scroggins
- Komen for the Cowards: Betraying Breast Cancer
- The Bat Segundo Show: Susan Cain
- Forgotten Writers: Dorothy Uhnak
- Dwight Garner’s Revisionist Ignorance: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Forgotten Writers: The Novels of John P. Marquand
- The Situation in American Waffles
- The Bat Segundo Show: Elliot Perlman
Modern Library Reading Challenge
On January 10, 2011, Managing Editor Edward Champion pledged to read the top 100 fiction books from #100 to #1. Read about his progress as he makes his way through the Modern Library canon!
84. The Death of the Heart (January 6, 2012)
85. Lord Jim (November 30, 2011)
86. Ragtime (October 30, 2011)
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)
Markson, David Archive
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RIP David Markson
Posted on June 6, 2010 | 7 CommentsDavid Markson, who was one of my favorite living writers, has passed away. He was 82. It’s difficult to convey just how much of a loss this is for American... -
Gregory Cowles Says Gaddis “Not Difficult,” But Doesn’t Know How to Read Properly
Posted on September 11, 2008 | 2 CommentsDisplaying the kind of literary hubris that David Markson once skewered in This is Not a Novel (“See Professor Bloom read the 1961 corrected and reset Random House edition of... -
Hell Has Officially Frozen Over
Posted on July 6, 2007 | 7 CommentsLadies and gentlemen, the NYTBR has a longass review this Sunday of David Markson’s The Last Novel. I’m stunned. Stunned, I say! Tanenhaus actually devoting pages to fiction off the... -
Markson to Naysayers
Posted on January 27, 2007 | 1 CommentFrom The Last Novel: “Reviewers who have accused Novelist of inventing some of his anecdotes and/or quotations — without the elemental responsibility to do the checking that would verify every... -
New Novel from David Markson
Posted on December 26, 2006 | 2 CommentsIt looks like David Markson has another novel coming out from Shoemaker & Hoard. It’s called The Last Novel and is scheduled for a May 2007 release. Here’s a description:... -
Naked Dentists Dog Markson & Marquez’s Potential Movies?
Posted on January 28, 2004 | No CommentsNudity in Science Fiction Books (via Quiddity) Only in John Updike’s universe could a person be prim about dental procedure: ?Let?s have lunch,? he begged. ?Or is your mouth too...