I tend to read with my head more than my heart. I like to see how ideas develop through story and how writers put words together in interesting ways. It’s ... Read more

Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays is a short novel whose protagonist, Maria, is so out of touch with her own feelings that she does not even feel them ... Read more

Okay, so Fight Scenes by Greg Bottoms was not my favorite book. I’m not quite sure if I can even explain it, but I think ultimately it comes down to ... Read more

Kathryn Davis’ A Thin Place was very hard for me to get into at first. I tried starting a few times when I was in places where there were plenty ... Read more

I have to open—to get it out there—by saying that the protagonist of Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons reminded me, perhaps a little too much, of my own mother. The main ... Read more

Wayne C. Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction is a hefty tome, full of close analysis and careful considerations, all leading the reader toward being an intentional, considerate reader and writer ... Read more

Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son impressed me in many ways. Though it’s a collection of stories that mostly stand on their own, it also works as a novella, and is an ... Read more

The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Goia and R.S. Gwynn contains one or more stories by fifty-two different authors. Each author’s section is followed by a section ... Read more

Click here to read it. This is a very interesting conversation. I personally fall somewhere in between. I think there’s value to the reading kids (and adults!) are doing online. ... Read more

I finished A Wrinkle in Time a couple of weeks ago, but am just now getting around to writing about it here. I wrote tons in the margins while I ... Read more