Lemurian Congress

Robert Coover had dabbled with "trapped in a genre" stories before, but "Ghost Town" (1998) was the first time he exten...

If "Briar Rose" (1996) appeared in a collection of short stories, I would probably appreciate it more. There is something about a...

Robert Coover's novels tend to come in one of two formats: either they're teeny-tiny books with huge text and wide margins (glorifi...

"Pinocchio in Venice" (1991) was the first Robert Coover novel I read. Having just finished it now for the third time -- and in t...

Here's a wonderful advertisement from Womrath's bookstore, intended to convince us that READING about stuff is more exciting that ...

For the past six weeks or so I have been engaged in a Cooverthon...that is, I've been re-reading all of Robert Coover's books* in ...

I've spent over a month reading Thomas Pynchon's massive novel " Against the Day ." I have lugged it from home, to work, t...

At the end of the 1948 movie " The Snake Pit ," our newly-sane heroine tells her heroic doctor that she knows she has recovered he...

I rarely throw down a book in disgust, but after twenty pages of "You Had To Be There" by Robert Collins I feel like tossing it in...

A few years ago I realized that automobiles weren't magically invented with heaters already installed. By coming across random reference...

I love the qualification in the Mark Hellinger endorsement: one of the best novels IN ITS CLASS. Just so we're not confusing it with Do...

As best as I can glean from the pages of The New Yorker, 1930 was the year of: Backgammon. All the department stores were selling deluxe set...

I'm re-reading " Aztec ," the Gary Jennings book that I first read many years ago, and I have a few things to add to my previo...

Many things have prevented me from blogging recently, not least my own laziness and ennui. My computer's hard drive totally died after m...

I've never had a sense of human history; other than Geography, History was the class I was LEAST interested in during school. But now I...

Fans of yeast will remember that two years ago I printed the words of Parisian Dr. Victor Pauchet, author of that world-famous book "C...

I am reading William T. Vollmann's second-latest enormous book -- " Imperial " -- and I came across this apt, wonderful, and t...

In January I read an extremely positive review of Elizabeth Bowen's short fiction in a 1930s New Yorker magazine. Unable to find any of ...

I love reading yearbooks. They're curious anthropological documents that capture certain elements of a subculture, allowing some degree ...

"Guestroom Books" by Newman Levy (The New Yorker, April 12, 1930). Beside my chaste and downy cot There stands a goodly number Of...