Category Archives: books

Draft Booklist for a Last-Minute First-Year Writing Course

As I’ve whined on Twitter, my digital humanities class this semester was canceled*, and has been replaced with a section of first-year writing.  Since classes begin on the 24th,  I need a book order immediately, and a syllabus soon after. My … Continue reading

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The mini-interviews are back!

I’m *very* pleased to say that this week marks the return of my posting mini-interviews, rather than only links, to Jessa Crispin’s Blog of a Bookslut.  There are more in the pipeline, too–including an exciting multimedia one! At any rate, … Continue reading

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PsychoSlut

Look what’s new at Bookslut this month: This month we introduce two new columns: Culinaria Bookslut, which is pretty much what it sounds like; and PsychoSlut, which hopefully is not. . . . And in PsychoSlut, Jason B. Jones, also … Continue reading

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Review: Theory of Orange, by Rachel M. Simon

My review of Theory of Orange is in this month’s Bookslut: In characterizing Theory of Orange as comfort food, I’m not trying to be patronizing — rather, it strikes me that her basic method is to take a familiar conceit … Continue reading

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Poetry links

My weekly post is up at Bookslut.  Topics include Darrell Grayson, “poetry therapy,” mathematical poems, an astronomer’s complaints about Whitman, and more. I think some interviews are likely to go up soon, and there’s something interesting coming in a few … Continue reading

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Review/Interview: Angus McLaren’s Impotence

Over at PopMatters’s Re:Print, I’ve begun what I hope will be a series of reviews and interviews highlighting work from university presses that might interest general readers. The first such post, about Angus McLaren’s splendid new book, Impotence: A Cultural … Continue reading

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Review: Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening

This morning PopMatters posted my review of Aurelia C. Scott’s Otherwise Normal People: This book delivers almost exactly what the title offers: A sympathetic, perhaps even sentimental, look at the slightly crazy people who organize their lives around rose competitions. … Continue reading

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Requiescat: Sterling E. Lanier

As I noted just now on PopMatters, Sterling E. Lanier died two weeks ago. If you’ve not read his Hiero novels, and you are, or have been, a fan of sf+fantasy, then doing so would make a lovely tribute to … Continue reading

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A book that could have changed my life . . .

. . . if only it had been around when I was an undergrad: Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Harvard UP, 1999) If, at 19, I’d known the classics were so awesome . . . I’d probably be … Continue reading

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Review: Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated, by Carson Cistulli

In this month’s Bookslut, I review Carson Cistulli’s Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated:  One of the book’s strongest features is its implicit commentary on American masculinity, especially in its adolescent and 20-something variants. Cistulli’s poems are sports-besotted, not with the usual … Continue reading

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