false 27 140 123 true 5653163 read 2 true 272809 currently-reading 15 true 272808 to-read 42 false 272863 extracurricular-fiction 32 false 272851 assigned-fiction 24 false 272832 nonfiction 17 false 583629 barthelme 14 false 272880 manga 7 false 275185 unfinished 5 false 1360879 civil-war 5 false 345690 comics 4 false 3470827 young-adult 3 false 1937897 criticism 3 false 492585 chess 2 false 671622 poetry 2 false 3470818 craft 1 false 1328549 drama 1 false 3470820 art http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/58848703 to: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Hardcover) by Christopher McDougall
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38042525 to: Flying to America: 45 More Stories (Hardcover) by Donald Barthelme
bookshelves: extracurricular-fiction
Most of the rest of Barthelme. Reading it just made me want a fancy series of reprints of all the original collections with the stories in their original chronological order. Instead you've got to scramble between four volumes (and good luck ever re-assembling Overnight to Many Distant Cities). But that's not this book's fault -- I'm just cranky. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38042440 Crime and Punishment, Backgrounds & Sources, Essays in Criticism (Paperback) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
bookshelves: assigned-fiction, currently-reading
The last time I read this book was 10 years ago. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37410394 to: Donald Barthelme: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne's Studies in Short Fiction) by Barbara L. Roe
bookshelves: criticism, nonfiction
Roe groups Barthelme's fiction by categories and formal techniques employed. It got me to re-read every story mentioned to follow her close readings. Roe, like me, is very interested in Barthelme's processes in composition and his work to constantly push himself to attempt new things without ever being sloppy. Placing stories together in this way makes him seem less scattershot and shows a progression toward more interesting failures. A really good primer for his work, but I wish Roe had gone into more depth in some places, but maybe you can't do much but show an intention and some examples of its execution with stories like "Bone Bubbles." ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37410315 to: Donald Barthelme: An Exhibition (Hardcover) by Jerome Klinkowitz
bookshelves: criticism, nonfiction
Probably not a bad place to start for Barthelme crit. Klinkowitz falls hard for the theory that "The Dead Father" is Don B.'s key work, but is able to mostly guard his excitement while he walks through all the work that lead to that point. Barthelme was trying his damndest to get to whatever the next new thing is, and Klinkowitz characterizes him as more confident and at peace having had his characters bury the symbolic corpse of modernism and his own father. Klinkowitz also does a tidy explanation of how Barthelme's formal experiments are trying to get at a kind of narrative cubism -- something that teaches readers to surrender plot and character for fragments that re-empower the language that makes up their imagination. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/36903135 to: Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849 (Paperback) by Joseph Frank
bookshelves: nonfiction
An excellent survey of mid-19th Century Russian philosophical, political and literary culture in addition to biography of Dostoevsky. That said, I'm hardly familiar with Dostoevsky's early works, so I found myself skimming plot summary bits in order to find those points of connection to his development as a young writer. I'm considering picking up the second volume. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/36903192 Unconventions: Attempting the Art of Craft And the Craft of Art (Paperback) by Michael Martone
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3178189 to: The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story (New York Review Books Classics) by Glenway Wescott
bookshelves: assigned-fiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2030096 to: Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays (Hardcover) by David Foster Wallace
bookshelves: nonfiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2030100 to: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (Hardcover) by David Foster Wallace
bookshelves: extracurricular-fiction
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