“Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. . . . It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one’s rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.” — Georges Bataille (1897-1962), French novelist and critic. Bartleby.com says, [...]
In the latest Eclectica Magazine, Andie Miller writes on several elements surrounding Paul Auster’s life, chiefly his father and son, as a possible explaination for dark elements in Auster’s most recent prose. Miller writes: In 1979, Auster concluded his Portrait of an Invisible Man, of his father, with these words: “Past two in the morning. [...]
Google’s official blog explained last month the reason a search for “failure” leads first to the White House biography page for President G. W. Bush. They say it’s called “googlebombing,” the popular use of select key words when linking to a site. “In this case,” Google reports, “a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] [...]
Ed Champion’s latest edition of The Bat Segundo Show is an interview with the prolific writer T.C. Boyle. Boyle stated that writers tell stories from their own worldview, but he did not write with a truth or point in mind because that would kill the art. While he’s confident a scholar could distill from all [...]
In contrasting reports today, Publishers Weekly says overall book sales are up 1.9% in August, though for the year they are down 2.2%. In addition to that news, Borders Group Inc., owner of Borders Books, Music, Yogurt, and More as well as Waldenbooks, has announced it won’t earn as much as it had forecasted. Closer [...]
Joking about The Prayer of Jabez, Russell Moore of Touchstone Magazine said, “that the feminist revisionists would respond with their own small devotional volume: The Prayer of Jezebel.” On Friday, he reported the book’s release. Fortress Press, the publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has announced the publication of The Jezebel Letters, [...]
Think Before You Look is a strong, short book on avoiding sexual temptation. Recommended.
From Peggy Noonan’s latest column comes this writing moment regarding the Supreme Court nomination: I think I know what White House aides are thinking. They’re thinking: This is the part of my memoir where we faced the daily pounding of our allies. They’re thinking: This is the “Churchill Alone” chapter. They’re thinking: He was like [...]
Carolyn See reviewed Jessica Hendra’s memoir, How to Cook Your Daughter, in the Washington Post. See assumes this book wouldn’t have been written had Hendra’s father, Tony Hendra, not praised and forgiven himself so much in his memoir-billed-as-biography called Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. “For a man whose soul had been saved,” [...]
Howard Kurtz gives what appears to be an exclusive excerpt of former CBS Producer Mary Mapes’ book, Truth and Duty, at the end of his Media Notes column, reports Editor and Publisher. Kurtz refers to the book’s first chapter being on Amazon, but it isn’t now. In fact, the book isn’t there either. I found [...]