Category Archives: Noteworthy
Open Letters Monthly, May 2013
It looks as though April showers—and snowstorms—have finally brought a few May flowers. With or without showers, we also have the May issue of Open Letters Monthly, which comes with some choice buds and blossoms of its own: Rohan Maitzen gives us a review of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life… and then the review that [...]
On Grad School and Hair Camisoles
Damn school all to hell. Really. This month alone I missed the Pulitzers; Poem in Your Pocket Day, which loyal Like Fire readers (probably the only ones left) will know is a stone favorite of mine, and in fact all of Poetry Month; the opening of the DPLA—a uniquely contemporary combination of digitally, untetheredly global [...]
Open Letters Monthly, April 2013
It recently occurred to me that at the institute of higher learning where I’m currently working on my MLS, there is a Fall semester, a Spring semester, and a Summer semester. The designation “Winter” is completely absent, and this is clearly no accident. Even though this isn’t one of the places that shows up regularly [...]
Pocket Review: All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
All We Know: Three Lives Lisa Cohen Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012 As the title would indicate, All We Know: Three Lives is a triple biography—dense and cerebral, often reading like a lot of topics in search of a Master’s thesis—which turns out, in fact, to be a good quality. Lisa Cohen has a wide-ranging [...]
Ed Man Walking
Many of you are probably familiar with my complaint that Nothing Ever Happens In My Neighborhood. True, it’s one of the few remaining affordable places in New York where you’re only a few blocks from the subway; it’s safe, spacious, and relatively quiet; and you can get to most parts of Manhattan within an hour. [...]
A Satisfying Night for The Story Prize
Was it just me, or was this year’s Story Prize event an even better show than usual? Which is not to say that it ever isn’t good—Larry Dark and his finalists never fail to be interesting and lively. And, as I’m fond of pointing out, there are only three of them, which means even the [...]
Looking It Up: Dictionary Data in a Digital Age
You never see a discussion of online dictionaries without someone invoking the magical powers of browsing. It’s true, of course—who hasn’t discovered a really good word while looking for something else? You can’t argue with the expediency of the electronic search, but it does seem a shame to sacrifice that potential in the process. According [...]
Open Letters Monthly, March 2013
March certainly came in like a lion this year, the kind that threatened to eat me whole, bones and all. But I’ve managed to make it as far as Spring Break, which is cause for celebration right there. And rather than get drunk and run around topless down in Florida, I’m hoping to catch up [...]
An Evening with William Gaddis
Readers and fans of William Gaddis, a writer notoriously protective of his privacy during his lifetime, have been waiting years to read his correspondence. A number of pieces were collected in Conjunctions this past fall, and finally next month Dalkey Archive Press will publish The Letters of William Gaddis, edited by Steven Moore with an [...]
On Beyond Chekhov: Introducing The Russian Library
When Russian writers come up in conversation, as they are wont to, you can always count on someone—or an entire chorus—admitting to huge gaps in their reading and confiding that they really need to address the situation. I know because I’m one of them. I fully intend to read War and Peace and Anna Karenina [...]
