L.S. Popovich's Blog, page 14

Review of Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Why do people read literary fiction? I ask myself this whenever I try to define the difficult term “literary fiction.” I think of Philip Roth and John Updike most readily. I see that Moshfegh manages to impress literary readers while also capturing a large audience, ie, being a bestseller. But unlike Roth or Updike, I […]

Review of My best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Listening to 80s Synthwave Halloween mix on Youtube while writing this review. This was the kind of audiobook I had to invent chores to continue listening to. An incredible audiobook performance first of all. And a beautifully written book, oozing nostalgia from every acne-scarred pore. The angst. The rich details, and the evocation of 80s […]

Review of Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I only plan to read a few autobiographies in my life. I would consider reading Mark Twains and Casanova as well. Rousseau’s reputation is immense. As soon as I began listening to the audiobook I felt at home in the author’s style. It was a long and rambling account of his life, going over his […]

Review of Edgar Allan Poe: Collected Works by Edgar Allan Poe

It was nice to pick up a leather bound edition of Poe for my Halloween rereading of his stories.  I rediscovered amazing stories like “King Pest” and “The Devil in the Belfry.” this activity reminded me of the many qualities I admire about his writing. I was disappointed in the presentation of the text, however, […]

Review of The Exalted and the Abased by Damian Murphy

Several more novellas with occult-aesthetics from the master of neo-decadent novellas. It is a niche genre perhaps, but the sumptuous descriptions and elegant interior design, the descents into esoteric epiphanies, the occluded worlds steeped in reverent awe of dark forces – none of these things get old when the prose sparkles and snaps, when every […]

Review of The Neo-Decadent Cookbook by Various

A fun companion piece to the other Decadent anthologies from Snuggly Books (though this was published by Eibonvale) featuring returning favorites: Brendan Connell, Quentin S. Crisp, Justin Isis, Damian Murphy, and several others. The short tales center around food, ingredients and people. They are rich in detail and surprising in content, since none of them […]

Review of Atari 2600/7800: A Visual Compendium by Bitmap Books

Makes a nice pair with the Commodore 64 volume. Bitmap Books makes immensely lavish retro video game books for readers like me, who prefer pixels to photorealism. And you get a lot of pixilation in this volume. I could complain about the book’s blocky pools of color, how the format of the Atari’s graphics does […]

Review of Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

This surreal collection of short stories put me in mind of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, Smart Ovens for Lonely People, and Life Ceremony. It uses the same recipe of injecting everyday tone with bizarro aesthetics. This is upmarket bizarro. Genre fiction pretending to be literary fiction. A popular tactic nowadays. It discusses the […]

Review of Instagrimoire//Fax Screen Sect: The Cancellation of Graham Greene, Volume 1: Tales from Orthographic Oceans, or: A Room with a View (Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror with Interior Landscape & Key to the Scriptures) by Justin Isis

“The Ghost of Hana Kimura” is one of the finest poems I have read anywhere in a long time. These are utterly unique, rereadable, poignant statements about our times. Dissectable, dense glimpses into a mind steeped in the light of liminal “inner flame.” Landscapes of the cyber-dead, and the obsolete kings of our renown. A […]

Review of Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams

Brutal, Bloody Realism. Impressive in every way. While Williams’ old-fashioned style suits the atmosphere of this tense book, his sentences are florid in places. But the graphic depictions and tangible grit make this journey unforgettable. It reminded me of the film Wages of Fear. I mourn the millions of buffalo hides rotting on the plains. […]