Take a Bite Out of Buford’s Among the Thugs
The soccer controversy out of the World Cup today about Luis Suarez biting an opponent reminded me of the fabulous book Among the Thugs by Bill Buford. Prior to writing bestsellers about cooking, Buford churned out an amazing book that provided an inside look into soccer hooligan culture. Well worth grabbing off the shelf for…
continue readingThe Rants of Gordon Lish
Under normal circumstances, I would be ecstatic that the great Barry Hannah gets a mention — any mention — in Newsweek magazine. But this article of Gordon Lish in decline just rubs me the wrong way. I know a number of people who took Lish’s workshop and a couple who were edited by him. So…
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Conservative Book Publishing on the Wane, So Cruz Gets $1.5M
Little more than two weeks after a widely circulated article on the fading of a genre, “Killing Conservative Books: The Shocking End of a Publishing Gold Rush that discussed “the gutting of the conservative book market” and that too many books and too many publishers “made the economics of their genre much tougher, with an…
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Plan Your Trip by The Kentucky Barbecue Book
The Food Network and other outlets churn out insufferable amounts of coverage devoted to barbecue in Texas, North Carolina, and Kansas City. With good reason, admittedly. Like anything, there are places where people simply do things right. And those locales should be celebrated and honored. But by falling back on these old faithful locations time…
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Sometimes, Ya Just Gotta Write a Shitty Line
We write poor lines because of rushed deadlines, screaming babies in the background, hangovers, and just general human fallibility. Other times, we write poor lines because we have to, because even though they may sound off or awkward, they are, technically, accurate. Such is the case with this Scientific American article republished on Salon.com.
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