Alex Kudera's Blog, page 90

Watermelon with Richard Brautigan

Follow this link for watermelon recipes with Richard Brautigan.

favorite bad review

My new favorite negative review of Fight for Your Long Day  is for "11 out of 12 conscientious objectors." Of course, authors do not live on negative reviews alone, so I'm very grateful if you would be kind enough to read, rate, or review either my debut novel or Auggie's Revenge. Thanks so much for considering this; it's greatly appreciated, at least by me.

May 29, 1933

"The world of today is at the crossroads--[t]he whole scheme of aimless capitalism and the last dregs of traditionalist nationalism are being seen more clearly in their death struggle."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals , entry from May 29, 1933

Haiti

An earthquake in Haiti has killed at least twelve people. The subsequent aftershocks have lead to various tremors and disturbances not at all limited to one wandering soul finding my blog on Haitians in Philadelphia and my childhood home posted around the time a far more devastating earthquake struck.

Joseph O'Neill

Joseph O'Neill's "Pardon Edward Snowden" and "The First World" are short stories I enjoyed this September. Likewise, O'Neill's interview in  The Paris Review  includes this gem: "Publication is almost certainly a punishment for having written a book."

Daniel Kalder

Best known for his Russian travel narratives, Daniel Kalder published a new book,  The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy.

He was writing his novels. . .

"He was writing his novels as a way to escape his life."

South Korean sighting

Jessica Bruder's Nomadland

Among the wide range of books in the post-Nickle-and-Dimed category on American workers in economic trouble, Nomadland is an informative title that I enjoyed.

Nomadland

Among the wide range of books in the post-Nickle-and-Dimed category on American workers in economic trouble, Nomadland is an informative title that I enjoyed.