Category Archives: Uncategorized

Spoiler alert: and yet, it’s not so unlike that first chapter

Posted by Darby on Sunday, June 26th, 2011 at 4:00 pm.

So, I’m about 200 pages into The Recognitions; with luck and determination, I’ll be through part one today; and with a lot more luck and a lot more determination, I’ll be out entirely within a month. I don’t know how much of the book I’ll really get, but if my current stats hold up, I [...]

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Also, real talk

Posted by Darby on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 at 6:18 pm.

Windows users who can see the Typekit fonts on this blog: tell me, do they look like ass, or not? Thanks!

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Some thoughts on How To Live by Sarah Bakewell

Posted by Darby on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 4:33 pm.

How To Live, or, A Life of Montaigne, by Sarah Bakewell, as published (and, to be fully transparent, provided to me by) Other Press: Hey! Good book, this! I started this book sometime last year, but since I just finished it this week, I’m freeing it up from the forgiveness of things I meant to and [...]

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CORE DUMP Y2K10: The imaginary pullquote from an unwritten review of Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy, a book I failed to get around to talking about as much as I wanted to, but which I remain convinced is an excellent and frightening novel that I think everybody with a stake in the whole “being a part of human society” thing ought to take the time to read

Posted by Darby on Friday, December 31st, 2010 at 1:55 pm.

If I were to write a full review of Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy, this would probably be the pull quote: What lingers, months after reading it, when the specific details have faded from memory, is a sense of lingering strangeness, an extension of the borders of the story past the point at which the premise ought [...]

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CORE DUMP Y2K10: 5937 words worth of unfinished blog posts, presented alphabetically, and coated with self-forgiveness

Posted by Darby on Friday, December 31st, 2010 at 1:47 pm.

‘06 “blogs” “pitch “short,” “Well “Yeah, “You (all (and (at (because, (being (did (ditto), (Economical (essentially) (I (in (let’s (Like (of (or (or (poorly (proving (says (shudder) (significantly (the (though (though (we (Which (which (which, (wildly). (with [name], &&&&es #glassesgate %#$ual 1990, 2010 2010 2010, 2010. 2010. 2011 2011. 2012 300 a a a a [...]

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Dispatches from Imperial, #1

Posted by Darby on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 3:39 pm.

For the last two weeks, over lunch, I’ve been reading Imperial by William Vollmann. I’d actually started reading the book earlier this year, getting about 50 pages into it as part of a plan to read about 50 pages per week until I was done, before I promptly forgot the book existed after I had [...]

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New review at The Collagist: Drowning Tucscon by Aaron Michael Morales

Posted by Darby on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 1:28 pm.

Issue number 13 of The Collagist is up. As Matt Bell notes in his Letter From the Editor, it’s the one-year anniversary issue. Which makes it all the more exciting to be a part of it; in this issue, you’ll find my review of Drowning Tucson by Aaron Michael Morales. Here’s how it begins: Fill [...]

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Because why because why not

Posted by Darby on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 10:07 pm.
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Some thoughts on The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

Posted by Darby on Sunday, June 27th, 2010 at 5:19 pm.

First up, the short version, from the perspective of someone who, after having written most of the original review before reading what anybody else wrote about the book, has gone back and read some of what other people have said, and has found himself wondering if he’s either entirely daft, or somehow really off the [...]

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I mean, the ribbon is probably only like, what, ninety years old? Seventy?

Posted by Darby on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at 2:45 pm.
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  • Follow Elsewhere


  • 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.