Posts about reading, writing, library, books, authors, and related topics were a core aspect of this blog. There ended up being half a dozen pages, some short and some not so short, that touched upon those topics. As I restructured the site to be more "upkeepable," I combined most of those into this single page. This means this page is a collection of hundreds of links and references, now. Apologies for that.
Dalmilling Cards.. For those people annoyed, like me, by people thinking that someone reading would rather just talk, instead. This helps you to be get rid of them, or at least be rude back. (Dalmilling is trying to talk to someone while they are trying to keep reading, more information here.
On Reading Journals. I don't use them, but what the hell? Maybe you want to and are looking for a few quick and easy suggestions...or just general irreverant advice.
And, because I do get asked about this from time to time, let me give you another great essay from the desk of me: "You're Damn Right I Read It More Than Once!.
The Four Horror Endings. Four general ways that a horror novel (or movie) can end.
Joe Hill's Which of these three Brits had the biggest cultural export impact and my answer (22 Jul 2009). Here's a hint, I said Dickens.
Informal survey: The rereading of books, stories, and so forth (30 Jul 2009). Only a couple of people responded when I first posted this, so I figured I would leave it up to see if anyone else wanted to take a crack.
Ways that Books just might be better than Movies... (14 Sep 2009). (1) They are books. Booyah! Mixing serious and tongue-in-cheek (when do I not mix those two?) I describe ways I find books to be better than movies.
Brians as a unit of measurement, reading HGttG book 6, website updates, and compiling my poetry (13 Oct 2009). Part one introduces "The Brian", something I plan to take back up in future times. Basically, how big a pile of crap is this book compared to the previous parts?
Sporadic tokens or a plethora of white? (5 Dec 2009). Should we keep using token (as in token black, token hispanic, token gay) characters, or should we move away? Is the alternative of not using minority characters at all better? [cross-posted to ...on Media].
"A Well Read Book" (poem) (13 Mar 2010). A poem about the stains that books have, and a challenge to those who think that books should always be pristine if you love them. That is not so, and this poem explains why.
Literary Heroes: That Sticky Road (19 Apr 2010). On the subject of literary heroes, and the inherent dangers of colluding the man for his works; on going whole hog in fandom; and on the way writers tend to dial everything, as it were, to eleven.
A Nation of Hoarders, not Readers. On the question of the twin heads of codex consumption... (20 Feb 2011). Eric Forbes has a blog post [by Ng Je Enn?] about the benefits of reading versus the general trend of aliteracy in Malaysia. In it, the phrases hoarders not readers crops up. But with bookstores closing while libraries reach something like record circulation, what really *is* going on with literacy in this country (and others).
By the sixth page he was brought short with the number four. Or, how far do you read a book to know it is good? (13 May 2011). How far into a book, by whatever unit you wish to stake that measurement, must you read before you can decide the quality of good or bad? Do negative reviews take longer, or shorter, times than positive ones? We we talking in terms of sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters, or section? One reviewer took one word on page 6. How about you?
Find and Replace Public Domain Gone Mad...Celebrity Chekhov (11 Aug 2011). Take a famous novel. Swap out character names for celebrity names. Profit?
NYTimes, On the falseness of quotes... (31 Aug 2011). We all love a good quote. Love them. Bumperstickers. Wall posters. Email signatures. So on and so on. But Brian Morton starts digging into the truth behind some of the most loved...
Bookmarks and me. No not the web thingies. Yes. The paper thingies. Yes, well, it is a minor topic to blog about... (8 Sep 2011). Having spent about 10 minutes this morning looking for a particular bookmark, I thought it might be interesting to write about bookmarks. Interesting to me, at least...
Finding books by their covers. Or, why hasn't a search engine been made already?.. (2 Jan 2012). There is the old yarn about library catalogs/classification needing to be by book cover. The real question is, why hasn't someone attempted it?
Looking more closely at the numbers from that "The Next Time Someone Tells You Internet Killed Reading, Show Them This Chart" story... (8 Apr 2012). Is reading in decline? Maybe. It really depends on who you ask, which metrics you use, and so forth. One popular article suggests it is all hullabaloo, but fails to point out the rest of the story.
A well-meaning rant of dead-tree fetishism starts off well, dive bombs into personal attacks, and pulls up on the back-side of surreal (27 Mar 2013). Zoe Triska says What NOT to do with books, and while the article seems mostly well-intenioned, it manages to go off to weird and not altogether healthy places...
One of my pet peeves with the "I only read REAL books" movement, it's not like real books are quite what they used to be... (12 Sep 2013). Usually when people slag off ebooks, they do it with a gleam in their eyes that suggest that they, the slagger, are the keepers of real-literature. And then they bring out their cheap paper-pulp editions...
I like reading 1-star reviews on Amazon, it helps to find things like this... (23 Sep 2013). 1-star reviews on Amazon.com often represent little glimpses into anonymous lives. Sometimes, though, they help you to find mild diversions.
Apparently my natural reading speed is a little over 750 words per minute (3 Feb 2014). There are many factors that contribute to reading speed, but taking a fairly normal test with no attempt at speed reading or notable chunking or any such thing lead to a score of about 750 words/minute. That's ok, I guess.
A Cracker of a 1-Star Review (4 May 2014). Some 1-star reviews are delightful.
Turns out Goodreads has a Fail Whale (20 Jun 2014). Goodreads has a fail whale, which I'm strangely just now seeing.
Old EC Ad: If you hate comics, you're a communist! (23 Jan 2015). Back when EC was coming under increasing fire for their content, they ran an ad designed to decry detractors as dirty reds. Dark Horse recently reprinted this ad, so I figured I'd share.
Library Sued Over Book (19 Jun 2009). A library is sued because a book is on the shelves. It's more complicated than that, sure, but that's the general gist.
Privacy Rights and Circulation (21 Jun 2009). Looking at the ALA's code of ethics and how that factors into privacy and circulation.
Videogames the public library system (8 Jul 2009). For better or worse, libraries are getting more and more shots at luring kids in with videogames. Here's some of my (initial, anyhow) thoughts on the matter.
Doug and the Librarian Profession (my final for LS501) (15 Dec 2009). This sums up a lot of my ideas about why I want to be a librarian and where I think the profession is going and what I can do for it. It starts out with how I avoided the choice for a while, considering books as just a hobby, and ends with how I think I can contribute best to it.
Lazy Days, Policies and Procedures, Months without Facebook, Inception, etc (29 Jul 2010). Briefly discuss the importance of P&P for new technologies in the library.
10 Years Later, people look back at the "10 reasons the Internet is no substitute for a library" poster (20 Apr 2011). One post proclaimed proudly that the Internet is no substitue for a library [if you are talking about a good to great library, it really isn't, not for many tasks and information seeking behaviors]. Now, 10 years after the original article was published, Amercian Libraries looks back at some recent critique.
University of Maryland's McKeldin Library has 13.5k books fall due to earthquake (bonus: Dating girls who [do/n't] read) (26 Aug 2011). Though the 5.8 earthquake is considered smallbeans by many, it has had its moments of destruction.
Doug Responds to Things Spotted on the Internet: Someone maybe doesn't get banned book week and just one point about meat-substitutes (01 Oct 2014). Banned Books Week gets some flack, but at least one piece of flack feels weird. Also, while I get what some people are saying about meat-substitutes, let's be honest for a moment.
Tattooed Librarian calender. Hmmm (3 Aug 2009). A calendar featuring tattoed librarians is published and some react poorly. To me, the real problem might be this idea that librarians are so particularly easy to stereotype that anything outside of this stereotype is treated as heroic.
My So-Called "Rough" Night, the "I Promise It's Y" Exchange Type (02 Oct 2009). Talking about people refusing to believe your suggestion at first, and a little about library anxiety.
One honest problem facing new librarians: the part-time job (7 Dec 2009). Of all the problems facing us young'un librarians, it seems to me that the potentially worst one is being forced to take a part-time job that requires graduate school work and years of experience.
Unfortunately, not exactly an atypical virtual reference exchange, or: Why e-ref needs reference interviews, too. (15 Aug 2010).
Can you guess why A Study in Scarlet was banned? (3 Sep 2011). The Study in Scarlet gave us, then unlikeable, Sherlock Holmes. It is not a great mystery, but is a significant one. Recently it got banned, want to guess why?
Some personal notes about designing a library newsletter (bonus: open source tools and submissions across a department) (extra bonus: tips and tricks section) (12 Oct 2013). I recently had a big part to play in the design, editing, and printing of our first ever library newsletter: The Call Number. I decided to share a few notes that can help to act as pointers, tips, warnings, and/or humorous commiserations.
There are numerous pros and cons for using e-books (the article also includes a brief description of an easy to use e-book store, discussion of copyright issues, and possible formats) , which I try to list out in the aforelinked article.
Also, I want to bring your attention to Cory Doctorow's article E-books: Neither E nor Books, which I have a plain text edition hosted here on my site. Doctorow is a big promoter of the new potentials of e-books, and my hat goes off to him.
Does the Kindle 2 Hurt Audiobooks? Revisted. (on Feb 25, 2009). Older post, in the older DoaB format (so it will load a larger page with the post as a portion), but still somewhat viable.
The Flirtatious Reader, by Odwar Dergey (3 Jun 2009). How are us readers supposed to get our reader-loving flirt on now that we use Kindles, netbooks, iPhones, and laptops? It's a problem, it really is.
Bag o' Links: Books, eBooks, and Libraries edition (11 Sep 2009). While my random collections of links and such aren't always the most repostable (who knows when the links are going to be broken), I kept this one because of the bit at the end, where I address a school library who shunted all of their material in favor of ebooks.
E-book's biggest thorns: ownership and the concept of what loans a book (09 Nov 2009). I look at various EULAs and such to talk about what companies think they are selling you (namely: the right to glance at some text but nothing else).
The two biggest problems I see facing e-book acceptance (outside of legal issues)? (11 Dec 2009). I describe some issues with the sameness of ebook experience (and how it can be annoying) and the much stickier question of who gets to decide the cost of ebooks (hint: it's not customers!)
Eight reasons why the iPad isn't a Kindle killer (and four reasons it might be, after all) (30 Jan 2010). The death knell is once again being rung for the Kindle. I think it's premature, and I give some reasons why.
Who Loves Books More: pReaders or eReaders? (aka, Doug gets Tongue in Cheek) (7 Feb 2010). After being told a few times that people who read ebooks like me are why books are in the gutter (more or less), I figured I would respond. Mostly, though, a humorous look at the differences between those who love ebooks, and those who hate ebooks.
Some more pbook-love turned ebook hate, but at least Random House seems reasonable (14 Feb 2010). As long as there is more than one way to make a book, there are going to be those who swear there is only way to read a book. This post briefly looks at one guy who bemoans the loss of book covers as an art-form, and how Random House shows maturity and wins my dollars by not demonizing ebooks.
Overshadowed by the jail-breaking of the iPhone: a good thing about eBooks in the copyright ruling, too (27 Jul 2010).
Kindle's update brought page numbers AND... (23 Mar 2011). A lot of talk went around about the new Kindle update bringing page numbers. It also brought a new feature, a 'Before You Go', that I've yet to hear mentioned much.
Ten reasons why ebooks cost as much as paperbacks (25 Apr 2011). People keep asking why various ebook publishers think that $12.99 to $14.99 are a good price for ebooks (and those people apparently have no idea that up until recently, ebooks were released equally priced with the hardcovers). I have decided to give ten reasons to see them through...
Amazon drops IPG's Kindle titles. How ebooks' second storm will be the real test (22 Feb 2012). Amazon drops IPG's Kindle titles over a contract lapse. IPG says the new terms are unacceptable. What does that mean? Don't know, but it's pretty clear that the eTether storm will make the eBabel one look like a minor excursion into madness.
Article starts out railing against the evils of Amazon, but then seems to recall something... (15 Apr 2012). Hatred of Amazon is a primary driving factor to those who are taking Apple's side, even those who don't want to take Apple's side, but sometimes when someone who has their own irons in the fire writes an article, they have to lead up to the third options.
The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight [trademarked buzzword warning!] looks sexy, but... (6 May 2012). It has better font control, SD card support, and innovative light glow technology. For it's epub support and these features, I kind of want one, BUT...
Watching the Amazon Kindle Price Weenies Shoot Themselves in Their Own Collective Foot... (15 May 2012). There are a dedicated group of watchmen, determined to bring ebook prices back down to below $10. And as the world moves on without them and their arbitrary prices, it only takes a little bit of searching to show that they are still off in their own little corner, oblivious but angry...
Doug Responds to Stuff: The Netflix of Books (9 Sept 2013). Oyster is setting itself up as a pay-a-fee, read as many books as you want service. What does this mean? Probably not too much, yet.
Here is a pet-peeve of mine: Genre fiction still treated as a trash-pile with only an occasional winner (16 Jan 2010). Science fiction and fantasy are still treated as a pitiful quagmire which drowns good stories. Have these critics even paid attention to all the pop-lit books that rehash the same self-denigrating plot?
Fratire versus subversive literature (15 Feb 2010). Fratire is a genre that celebrates the immature aspects of the male mind, that delights in breaking the PC rules, and seeks to speak out against the 'feminization' of the masculine. Tonight, though, I could not wonder if fratire is to subversive literature what torture-porn is to splatterpunk; a second[ rate]-cousin meant to actually popularize the unpopular.
Lampshade Hanging (23 Nov 2009). When an author does something dumb or preposterous, and then makes sure you know that he knows that it was dumb. Theoretically you will forgive him for it.
The "Like New" Lie, or, One Man's Misadventures with Amazon Marketplace (16 May 2009). AKA, why is it that all of my "like new" books from Amazon look like they have been fed to a large animal and vomited back out?
Cracked.com's Kickass Lessons Books Can Learn from Movies (11 Jun 2009). Can books be more profitable if they took a page from the movie handbook?
Failure to meteor watch, a quick musing about the book industry (13 Aug 2009). I muse about whether it really is a bad thing for books to be culled back a little in popularity. As our society becomes increasingly aliterate, is aiming for the least common denominator actually good for books?
The one about textbooks and the "free textbook seekers" (26 Aug 2009). This is partially about people trying to check textbooks out of the library. It is mostly about the cost of textbooks and what I think it means and how come it and all that.
The end of hardcovers? Maybe. Bargain books, price wars, loss leaders, and epublishing (11 Nov 2009). How the book industry is changing and whether or not it is changing for the better. I look specifically at questions about the relative value of hardcovers versus other formats.
Eraserhead Press is ten years old (woot!), the worst part of being sick, and goofy freaking browser issues (16 Dec 2009). I celebrate Eraserhead Press, the indie press that has been bringing us Bizarro lit for over 10 years. I also mention a few other meandering things, which seems fitting.
One Annoying Thing About Loving Books: The Impossibility of Getting Good Consistent Numbers of Sales (30 Dec 2009). While this article is mostly about ebook sales, I have to ask: why is that book sales are so hard to get in general?
Macmillan books gone from Amazon? (30 Jan 2009). A day or so ago, Macmillan's books disappeared from Amazon (excepting the Marketplace and some twin sites). It might be due to Macmillan demanding a certain minimum price point for their ebooks. If that's the case, who is the bad guy? The person who wants to charge us readers more? Or the bookseller who doesn't listen to the book publisher?
Books LLC: a brief search into who they are now that they show up in all of my Amazon.com searches... (22 Sep 2010). Books LLC has been showing up in my Amazon.com searches more and more. I was curious to find out what was up. Turns out that the books showing up in my searches were copies of Wikipedia articles, sans graphics, printed and bound and sold as reference works.
Removing the N-Words so as Not to Offend, or The " ew" Adve tures of Huckleberry Fi (4 Jan 2011). A new edition of Huck Finn by NewSouth Books attempts to swap out the old racial n-word for another. Some small outcry has been heard about this, but what really does it all mean? Can changing out a word change a book, or the past? Will such an edit even be noticed? It's complicated.
And you thought the edited Huckleberry Finn was a trip... (12 Jan 2011). Beating NewSouth's un-n-worded Huck Finn by a year, WordBridge's N-Word of the Narcissus goes so far to put the edit in the title. However, is this a joke?
Writers are leading a boycott against Dorchester Publications (24 Mar 2011). Dorcheter Pub, home to Leisure Horror amongst others, had a wide wallop of problems last year leading them to reorganize themselves as an ebook centric book publisher. Except, along the way they have run into apparent delays, had some writers go off on their own, and fulfilled their bookclub subscription by sending out other publisher's overflow (basically). Today, Brian Keene and others have started calling on a boycott of Dorchester in retaliation of yet another thing: DP continues to publish ebooks that they have no right to publish.
One reviewer's critique leads to an author's pique... how a 2-star review lead to a 4-letter word. [plus, man bites top off beer can, be amazed!] (29 Mar 2011). When a certain reviewer (we'll call him R) reviewed a certain book (B) by an author (A), A took exception with R and decided to air the exception publically. It went south from there...Bonus Video: man bites top off of beer can...
Goodreads is seeking new metadata source, leaving Amazon for...well, something. "Rescue" operation underway... (25 Jan 2012). Goodreads is trying to move away from using Amazon as its backend for metadata. Apparently this means it has to go through and have someone re-enter data on a lot of books who take their source from Amazon. Something like a rescue operation is underway.
For my bookstore friends, "honest" labels for Barnes and Noble style displays... (21 Feb 2015). One of the weird banes of existence for bookstore workers is coming up with displays. While gathering beloved books under fun ersatz categories should be exciting, and should be fun for browsers, they never quite work out as such. Someone has at least decided to have a little fun with it...so let's have a wry chuckle.
Academic publishing once more brews up a storm (5 Feb 2012). With some academics starting to promote boycotting of publishing to Elsevier, and a congressional bill underfoot which might help to hose open access, academic/scholarly publishing continues to inch closer to a boiling point where it will all come out.
The Many Errors of Barnes and Noble's Complete Lovecraft (8 Mar 2011). Barnes and Noble has two nice editions out of a complete Lovecraft, but they are apparently haunted by dozens and dozens and dozens of errors. Literally hundreds, if not thousands. See the errata below.
Virginia Prison's Reading Policy Overturned, the right to tap into Ireland's unsung subconscious upheld (3 Sep 2010).
10 Facts About Books You Won't Read in a Book (cute, non-sense video) (1 Sep 2010).
Top 14 (15) Fictional Characters
Doug's (currently) 32 Question Reading Quiz.
Another book questionnaire: "By Threes" Book Questions.
My favorites of the Decade 2000-2009, Part 1 (TV Shows and Books) (19 Dec 2009). I break down a little over thirty of my favorite things form the past decade. The first part is half about my favorite books.
Favorite books I read in 2013 being also those that were published, sort of, in 2013 (1 Jan 2014). Looking back over 2013, I didn't read as much as I normally do, but I did read a few standout titles.
In honor of Towel Day, my favorite Douglas Adams' H2G2 quote: Space Is Big... (25 May 2010). Today, some are celebrating towel day in honor of Douglas Adams and the impact of his extraordinarily influential Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I forgot to bring my towel (I know, for shame), but I'll post my favorite quote, instead.
Some additional notes/commentary about Doug Talks Weird 2: Robert Aickman's The Trains, Aickmanesque, and Irrealism (02 May 2015). I have posted the second episode of Doug Talks Weird, this one dealing with an Robert Aickman story along with the concepts of Aickmanesque and Irrealism. Still goes on a bit long, but I think I like this even more than the first.
Tartarus Press to release book chronicling early development of Robert Aickman's style, includes documentary, Robert Aickman: Author of Strange Tales (4 May 2015). Tartarus is to release a book of early stories+fragments by Aickman, chronicling the development of his style. Book will include a DVD of a documentary that should be quite worth watching, if you are into that sort of thing.
Doug Talks Weird Bonus Episode: Re-Reading Aickman. Additional notes and commentary, with some response to Jason Wilcox's "The Shadow Woman: A Re-reading of Robert Aickman's 'The Trains'". (2015 May 14). I've released an [actually] short video talking about reading Aickman and the importance of re-reading his works, with a quote from Nabokov. I'll add in a few more details with this post and talk, briefly, about Jason Wilcox's recent article on Aickman's The Trains.
Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence (16 Aug 2011). Barron's 2007 collection of nine weird tales show his stylistic hallmarks of visual horror, carnivorous universes, disjointed narratives, insectoid digressions, power addicted madmen, and hints of noir. Overall a solid, fairly unique book with enough weird to chew on for a bit.
The funny weird glitch with my copy of Laird Barron's "The Light is the Darkness" (15 Oct 2011). I sometime back pre-ordered Laird Barron's 'The Light is the Darkness', and excitedly received it recently. But there was a glitch. A strangely perfect coincidental glitch.
The first thing I thought about was Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence": Creature in The Rock Crevice (05 Jul 2014). A strange creature in a rock crevice? Or, you know...not? Either way, I thought of 'The Imago Sequence' by Laird Barron.
My last three thoughts of Ray Bradbury, and one of his more powerful quotes. (6 Jun 2012). Ray Bradbury has died. For generations of geeks, he has been one of the quintessential sources of wonder and merriment. For me, he was a second star from the right to sail on till dawn towards. Here are three of my most recent thoughts about him, his work, and his influence, and one of his most powerful quotes.
Ramsey Campbell's The Pretence, a Review. (10 Dec 2013). Paul Slater flies home on the night the world is supposed to end due to yet another doomsday prediction. But something is wrong this time, things feel...off. Campbell taps into a vibe of truth and consequences, and comes out with a good novella about the nagging fear that reality is more fragile that it looks.
The Prolific and Regularly Misquoted PKD. My general take on what it means to start "getting into" PKD. I also talk about some of his general themes.
Can Man in the High Castle Be Updated? You know, if they made a movie about it or something... (17 Nov 2009). As a mental exercise, as much as anything, I discuss the parts of Man in the High Castle and how they might, or might not, be updated if a movie was made. Whom am I kidding? They would totally hose it.
In response to Niko's "The Impossibility of the Posthuman Event" (17 Dec 2009). My friend Niko pondered on the impossibility of the posthuman event. I'm not sure about the impossibility of the event itself, but I do discuss some barriers to us ever knowing it.
The two moral codes given in Crime and Punishment Part III, Chapter V and the Nietzschean notion of the Superman (14 Mar 2010). Near the end of the fifth chapter of the third part of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov and Porfiry Petrovitch (amongst others) get into a discussion about moral codes, stemming in part from a drunkden debate occuring at a party that Raskolnikov's friend Razumihin threw the night before. Both would be deemed immoral by many Americans today, but at their core they offer two different views of humanity worth considering, whether or not you agree they are worth adopting.
I dare you to read Eliot's "Burnt Norton" and not assume it was written about today... (17 Aug 2011). Distracted from distraction by distraction.
New website design (sort of) and the trip to Tuscaloosa to see Neil Gaiman (20 Feb 2010). This past Thursday, Sarah and I went down to Tuscaloosa to visit the University of Alabama campus (especially Gorgas Library) and to attend an event featuring one of my favorite authors: Neil Gaiman. I talk a little bit about that event and some about changing the layout of my site to better work with mobile devices and so forth.
Combining some ideas from Podcast to the Curious's recent A Warning to the Curious episode, or some weird possibilities of what was going on... (19 Oct 2013). Podcast to the Curious has released part one of their two part coverage for 'A Warning to the Curious'. Listening to them talk about some oddities in the story, started playing around with other possibilities...
Six Reasons Why You Should Support the Kickstarter for the movie adaptation of Brian Keene's The Cage (1 Oct 2013). There is a Kickstarter for a movie adaption for The Cage. You should support it? Why. I have reasons.
Perhaps the single best scholarly article title I have ever seen (29 Sep 2014). Some scholarly journal articles have great titles. This one takes the cake, though...
Additional Notes and Commentary on Doug Talks Weird 3: Thomas Ligotti's "The Frolic" and "What's a Lovecraftian?" (2015 May 31). Another Doug Talks Weird is up and I'm looking at Thomas Ligotti's story, The Frolic, and also talking about what makes something Lovecraftian. As is my custom, here are some additional notes and bits.
See my Lovecraft and weird fiction page.
Note, some of the authors on this page will also be mentioned there.
A writing friend of mine once pointed out the works of "Topaz" McGonagall as very bad poetry. At first, a random smattering of his stuff didn't seem that bad, but then I read a little more and a little more. I began to realize that he was truly horrible. In fact, he often bears the title of "Worst English Poet" (I suppose out of those that were published and were in contending as real poets, since there are likely worse that one would never have heard of). In fact, you can get a whole fix of his stuff at http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/ if you want. I think you might enjoy it. It is different, or something like that.
But, for your pleasure, I have included two of my favorites and one to grown on...
Micro-Reviews for the Stories in Reggie Oliver's The Sea of Blood (2015 Jul 26). As I read through The Sea of Blood, I left micro-reviews of most of the stories on Twitter. Here is the complete collection, in the order they show up in the anthology.
Why I no longer feel worthy to read Terry Pratchett's books... (20 Sep 2010).
Clark Ashton Smith can be a bear to read, but sometimes his message is kind of wonderfully parable-like (22 Jan 2010). In the midst of thick prose and fantastical trappings, it can be kind of fun to see the simple message that Clark Ashton Smith often wrote around.
A Vonnegut volume was released by Library of America. Not everyone is thrilled... (1 Sep 2011). Kurt Vonnegut's inclusion in the Library of America makes sense to me. First off, I like his works (some more than others), but more than that, I think it makes for an important mode of American letters (the sarcastic uncle, more or less). Others disagree...
Mor Jokai: the man whose wikipedia entry stands, gloriously, above the rest... (29 May 2010).
Bring change for the toilet or phone because your boss lady can't be bothered... (7 Apr 2011). A book from the 80s offers advice for how to handle your new boss lady (presumably it is aimed at guys who have been 'surplanted'). Tips include don't light your boss lady's cigarette, always bring change for her to go to the loo, hail taxis for her, and something about not ordering for her but you will get the check?
A Practical Guide to Racism, a Review (with a quote and some choice 1- and 2-star reviews) (16 Sep 2013). It's a joke book, about racism. Are you laughing yet? Hah. HAH. Good times.