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The Powerful Will to Live
Short Story: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce The usual complaint about Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is that it’s too melodramatic. To that I say:...
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Best Books (and Worst) of 2011
I’ve been recording every book I’ve read since 2001. I’m on my second notebook and have averaged about 45 books annually for the last 12 years. 2011 fell short of my average at 42 books (26 fiction,...
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A Dead Body
Short Story: “A Dead Body” by Anton Chekov Anton Chekov is considered by many to be the greatest Russian short story writer. His short prose is filled with internal conflict and subtleties of...
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Artful Interview: Dickens at 200
This month – February 8 specifically – beloved novelist and writer Charles Dickens would have celebrated his 200th birthday – if he had not, you know, died back in 1870. In honor of that distinction,...
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Dharma Bumming
I’ve been rediscovering the Beats recently. It has been, after all, 15 years this month since Allen Ginsberg died. My second going with the Beats (my first when I was in college) has not been as...
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Unmerciful Yates
One of Americas most under appreciated writers – at least by readers – is Richard Yates. None of his novels were ever best sellers and, in fact, none of them sold more than a few thousands copies...
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10 Scathing Literary Insults
A zinger is so much more satisfying when it’s not only scathing, but clever. Take Dorothy Parker as she nearly collided with Clare Boothe Luce as they both tried to get through a doorway. Luce smiled...
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Gentlemen & Drinking Establishments
From Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations”: “‘Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?” said I. ‘Not on any account,’ returned Herbert; ‘but a public-house many keep a gentleman.'” Whew!
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6 Books I’ve Read 3 Times
I don’t often read books more than once. There is only so much time, after all, and so many damn good books. So why keep going back to the same well? That said I am guilty of reading six books three...
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Dickens vs. “Entrepreneurs”
From Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times”: “This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty...
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