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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)
orwell-george Archive
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Against Essays About Reviews That Have No Corresponding Set of Virtues
Posted on June 25, 2011 | 5 CommentsWhy Elizabeth Gumport fails to understand the essays she quotes and the realities of book reviewing. -
Responding to Orwell: October 30
Posted on October 30, 2008 | No CommentsGeorge: I must again commend you on your succinctness. “Fine, not very hot. One egg” likewise describes many sad Sunday mornings in my twenties. There was a period in which... -
Responding to Orwell: September 15
Posted on September 16, 2008 | No CommentsGeorge: Seventy years from your epoch, the average person getting a gustatory rush from news and information enjoys considerably more than two newspapers. We now have RSS feeds propagating endless... -
Responding to Orwell: August 28
Posted on August 28, 2008 | 1 CommentGeorge: It pleases me immensely that you were fond of using the shorthand term, “ditto.” The word has intriguing etymology and yet you didn’t sprout (as I did) during the... -
Responding to Orwell: August 22
Posted on August 22, 2008 | No CommentsGeorge: Crazy day, quite sunny, with no showers. So much on the plate that a synapse malfunctioned. Was forced to grovel on the phone to a sadistic friend. Mood starting... -
Responding to Orwell: August 18
Posted on August 18, 2008 | 1 CommentGeorge! You’re back. Was getting a little worried. Had figured that the weather, which you were dutifully recording over the days, had at long last taken the wind out of... -
Responding to Orwell: August 14
Posted on August 14, 2008 | No CommentsGeorge: Nothing from you in the past few days. What’s going on? Hesitant to log weather and reddening blackberries? I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Who could... -
Responding to Orwell: August 13
Posted on August 13, 2008 | 1 CommentGeorge: No diary entry today? Come on, pal. I know you’ve been taking some flack because of your concern for weather and blackberries. And I know that I’m not the... -
Responding to Orwell: August 12
Posted on August 12, 2008 | 1 CommentGeorge: Always going on about the weather, I see. Not as hot an August afternoon here in New York, naught eight. But I’m beginning to understand why your diaries haven’t... -
Responding to Orwell: August 11
Posted on August 11, 2008 | No CommentsGeorge: Good to hear from you. No mist here, but some rain. Windows closed, so no mist inside. But I do wonder what kind of snuff-box you’re using and whether... -
George Orwell’s Diaries Remixed as Blog
Posted on July 29, 2008 | 2 CommentsThe Diary Junction reports that, as of tomorrow, George Orwell’s diaries will be available to the public. With the exception of a few diary entries contained in the four volume...