GOLDEN APPLE OF THE SUN
Curiosity, the newly landed Mars rover, took a short drive today on a Martian plain that will forever be known as Bradbury Landing. NASA...
BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN (LUCKY BRUCE)
My learned brother-in-law, Pat, sent me as a Christmas gift a copy of Bruce Jay Friedman's memoir Lucky Bruce . I believe I introduced him to the wonderful writings of Friedman back in the early Seventies, as we delved together into his mesmerizing short stories and his ebon-dark essays. I think our favorite collection was Black Angels , which contained a variety of provocative stories, both witty and disturbing. The title story was a classic of dark, absurdist humor, a tops
RUSSELL HOBAN, 86, RIP
Depressed to hear of the death last week of the American writer and illustrator, Russell Hoban, who had a unique career, exhibiting an eclecticism rarely paralleled in American letters. Though Hoban grew up in the States, he lived most of his adult life in London, where his output never really won him fame, probably due to the breadth of his oeuvre, which prevented him from finding a niche. I am largely unfamiliar with Hoban's children's literature--the Frances
NICK ADAMS-That's How It Is When You're Nineteen!
My students got a big kick out of the just slightly overripe voiceover to this trailer for the 1962 film Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man .
MR. PEANUT/LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
Adam Ross's 2010 novel Mr. Peanut is the best initial work by an author I've read since Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh back in 1988. Ross's recent collection of short stories, Ladies and Gentlemen , released this past June, received excellent reviews as well. The Boston Globe' s critic wonderfully suggested that Ross's style was a blend of Raymond Chandler and Raymond Carver. Doesn't get any better than that. Even the legendarily har
