November 21, 2007
Book Club Check In: Mailer’s “The Castle in the Forest”
Hello readers! I just KNOW that those hours on the airplane, or in the car, or waiting for the turkey when you’re not a football fan can be spent exploring […]
November 19, 2007
Hasten on, Wayfarer, Lest you Stir Up the Hornets
In thinking recently about Andy Grace’s consideration of the American short poem, I can’t help but think of Archilochos’ fragments, which I remember first seeing in graduate classes taught by […]
November 13, 2007
Book Club, Anyone?
David Hall’s response to my sendoff for Norman Mailer put me in mind of last year’s New Year’s Resolution: to read a book, play, or entire literary journal issue a […]
November 3, 2007
Digitization, Reading, Writing, Publishing
It seems a lucky thing that I returned to graduate school in the fall of 1995. A year or two earlier, the librarian at the secondary school where I was […]
November 1, 2007
On Reviewing and the Critical Mode
Auden, stalwart of principled taste and refined pleasures, left a gem of an essay on reading, and by extension reviewing, in the prologue of his book The Dyer’s Hand. Called […]
October 30, 2007
To Be and To Become
This post is the work of Jonathan Crimmins–TM There’s a neighborhood in Seattle called Fremont that used to be an aging hippie enclave, complete with a statue of Lenin. After […]
October 27, 2007
“Dealing With a Classic of Irresponsible Gibberish,” or What Do We Do With Hunter S. Thompson?
This piece is the work of author W. David Hall–TM Because we Americans love to pinpoint the exact day, hour, and minute that we become awash in the wake of […]
October 26, 2007
On Lady Look
This musing is the work of Susan Parr–learn more about her work on the author’s page. –TM Theories–and other thick things–can be pleasures in themselves. But they are often too […]
October 25, 2007
On Reviewing and the Critical Mode
Happily spelunking around the internet yesterday, I came across John Updike’s guidelines for writing book reviews, from the introduction to Picked Up Pieces. My favorite, and perhaps most controversial, is […]
October 17, 2007
How it Happens: Meeting Alice Oswald
Somehow, I’d been at my perch at the University of Cambridge for a month before I realized what a different range of texts and ideas this year would introduce to […]
October 16, 2007
Writing About War
Perhaps the biggest departure in Time and Materials from Robert Hass’ earlier work is his choice to speak topically on major contemporary American (and world) political issues–from war, to climate […]
October 15, 2007
Time and Materials
Robert Hass’ new book Time and Materials is his first in 10 years. There’s much to like in this book, and there is much quintessential Hass here. The landscape is […]