Daniel Woodrell Interviewed

The Southeast Review has a fantastic interview with Daniell Woodrell. Damn, now I’m going to have to dash home and devour Give Us a Kiss again. [via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind]

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Good Reads

In contrast with the awful book I read this weekend, I have enjoyed a couple of interesting works of both fiction and nonfiction. And we’ll be discussing these more in the coming days. But to just quickly recap, and get myself out of this funk, here’s the good stuff from recent days. William D. Cohan’s…

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Lost Hours

As a book critic, you learn to put aside (as much as humanly possible) your personal tastes and judge a book on its own merit. There’s the old John Updike advice to evaluate what the author intended to do, and don’t criticize him for failing to achieve something he didn’t intend to attempt. Also, as…

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Step into the Devil’s Garden

As spring arrives and the grass finally turns green and flowers begin to bloom, our minds turn to fixing up the yard and digging in the dirt. But crime writer Ace Atkins gives us a reason to spend time in a different garden. One where fame, celebrity, sex, alcohol, and intrigue cloud the notorious story…

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Welty Events Detailed in SF’s Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle had a nice roundup of all the coming events in Jackson, MS associated with Eudora Welty’s 100th birthday. Although it’s hardly news to most of the bookish set, I always like to see references to Richard Ford’s years on the same street as Welty. “The miracle of two Pulitzer winners growing…

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