US Weekly Owes Me Four Bucks
Bastards. I’m expecting a personal check from Jann Wenner for four U.S. dollars.
continue readingInterview: Jay McInerney, Author
Jay McInerney, literary chronicler of New York City, stood in his large window struggling with a broken shade. He wasn’t actually paying attention to the view–he’d seen it many times before: the wide expanse of water towers and fire escapes, the blossom of Wall Street, and the Twin Towers lurching out of the sea. Focusing…
continue readingCompany Reviewed
Max Barry’s entertaining new novel was reviewed by Stanley Bing in Sunday’s Washington Post. Bing liked the novel tremendously. Although he felt the characters were a little hollow, which undercut some of the reader’s emotional investment in their lives, the book was still “laugh-out-loud funny, its humor driven by all the pleasure that a true shock…
continue readingHitting the Jackpot with Mustang Sally
I was in Las Vegas a couple of weekends ago and I kept thinking about the literature of that city. Of course, my affinity for John O’Brien’s Leaving Las Vegas is well known. But I also kept thinking of a novel that you might have forgotten, or perhaps never knew about in the first place.…
continue readingNYT Reviews Reprise
I have no idea how the editors of the New York Times decide what books to review and how prominently to feature those assessments. I’m particularly intrigued by the choices they make when they revist a book with multiple reviews. This week, the Times featured reviews from two books that caught my attention. In…
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