Category Archives: Books

Because I needed a way to make The Instructions feel like a short beach read I went ahead and read War and Peace and it was good

Posted by Darby on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 8:59 pm.

Things went from “I’m busy and then I’m lazy when I’m not busy” to “wow I’m really completely busy” to “well I guess I’m busy but now I’m also mostly lazy since I know I’m just going to be busy again soon” so I haven’t properly post-mortem’ed my reading of War and Peace, a book that I read somewhere in [...]

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Freedom from Freedom

Posted by Darby on Thursday, March 17th, 2011 at 9:32 pm.

Okay, maybe I’m not done thinking about Freedom yet, end-of-year forgiveness aside, because I read this article, and it’s by Bret Easton Ellis about Charlie Sheen, which, I know, I know, but it’s actually interesting and makes some points, and as a toss-off comment there’s this bit about how it’s totally “Empire,” whatever that means, to not like [...]

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Still alive, sans cake

Posted by Darby on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 11:38 pm.

I’m almost–almost!–half way through War and Peace. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve, you know, said hi, here. I’m also about halfway through a semester’s worth of a drawing class. I’m at the beginning of some other cool things that are starting up that I hope to be able to share with you in [...]

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Initial final reaction to The Instructions by Adam Levin: or, that really certainly was one way to start the year

Posted by Darby on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 5:32 pm.

As if there could be such a thing as an initial final reaction to a book I’ve been reacting to steadily for the last two straight weeks: the dust has barely settled on the cover of my copy of The Instructions by Adam Levin and I know there’s conversation set to happen at some point [...]

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Y2K11: So It Begins

Posted by Darby on Monday, January 3rd, 2011 at 12:03 pm.

Hey! 2010. That happened. It did. And now it’s done. I forgive it for being done! It had to happen eventually. And on this last day of my winter vacation, the day devoted to drinking a strong pot of coffee before nervously spending the rest of the day crying myself to sleep in anticipation of [...]

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New Review at The Quarterly Conversation: Stephen Dixon, What Is All This?

Posted by Darby on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 at 1:08 am.

The Winter 2011 (2011?) Quarterly Conversation is live. It includes my review of What Is All This?, the new Stephen Dixon short story collection. The review begins sort of like this, though you’ll have to go over there to see the footnotes (footnotes?): What Is All This? is a potent, refreshing collection of previously uncollected short [...]

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Aw heck

Posted by Darby on Sunday, November 14th, 2010 at 2:27 pm.

And for my next trick, I’ll be teaching a master class in how not to blog. Anyway, I’m avoiding another project right now, long enough to say that I read all those books I said I was going to read, and I haven’t said much of anything because if you don’t have anything nice to [...]

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Immortality; or, 2006 is my Independence Day

Posted by Darby on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 8:11 pm.

Editor’s note: the following post is kind of jumping the gun, a bit, but it’s also kind of becoming quickly out of date, as well; it’s a little paradoxical. There’s more books from earlier this year yet to be discussed and a book from right now that is in the process of being discussed but [...]

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New review at The Collagist: The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich

Posted by Darby on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 7:06 pm.

The September 2010 issue of The Collagist is live. This one includes my review of The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich. The review begins like this: This is less a final review and more the beginning of a reading of The Orange Eats Creeps, the strange, excellent debut novel by Grace Krilanovich. This is [...]

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Unkind thoughts about Nobody Move by Denis Johnson

Posted by Darby on Monday, September 13th, 2010 at 8:48 pm.

I dislike dismissing a toss-off B-side of a novel by a highly respected author, particularly an author with whom I have some excellent prior experience, but: come on, guys, this book blew. At least, it did, for me, when I read it as part of my post-Drowning Tucson pop-ish-lit rock block earlier this year. I [...]

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  • Reviews Elsewhere

    In little to no particular order.

    • The American Girl and The Glitter Scene by Monika Fagerholm
    • "Monika Fagerholm creates a dark, dramatic, and lyrical world, often insular, full of change and loss.... I fell in love with this world and these books; they are, for me, a fresh reminder of what story itself is about.." Reviewed at The Collagist.
    • Some Things That Meant the World to Me by Joshua Mohr
    • "Joshua Mohr’s debut novel...is where Michael Gondry would go if he went down a few too many miles of bad desert road." Reviewed at The Collagist.
    • Drowning Tucson by Aaron Michael Morales
    • "Fill your book with blatant, modern-day classic, critical thematic concerns and a reviewer ought to have no problem calling them out in an easily digested bullet-point format.... Except, this book hurt. And trying to find a way to talk about that without merely repeating over and over again that this book hurt presents a far greater challenge." Reviewed at The Collagist.
    • Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
    • "Let me be completely transparent: with Lethem’s work, I approach it with expectations. I expect spice. In this case, I found the book flavorless and cold." Reviewed at Identity Theory.
    • Ray of the Star by Laird Hunt
    • "Consider the f-bomb: you can trace the trajectory of the story’s heart by the elegant deployment of that dexterous cuss word across the pages of...Laird Hunt’s latest (arguably best, unarguably most emotionally engaging) novel." Reviewed at Identity Theory.
    • What Is All This? by Stephen Dixon
    • This review includes footnotes. Reviewed at The Quarterly Conversation.
    • The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
    • "It is a slippery novel. It will never lay still and compromising in your hands, but the harder you hold on to it, the harder it is to hold. In confounding, it rewards: to borrow a line from the book, 'It’s only a problem if you make it one.' Reviewed at The Collagist.