reading notes

by Richard Powers
ISBN: 0312280122
Richard Powers is one smart guy who knows how to write: it is obvious on every page in this book. What I found most curious in reading this book was the fact that while I liked it, I was not emotionally attached to it. This is a novel more about ideas than [...]

by Raymond Carver
ISBN: 39472299X
This book is a re-read for me.
Fires is a collection, and a bit of an odd one: it starts off with two essays, then has quiet a bit of poetry, then some stories, an interview from Paris Review, and an afterword Carver wrote because he thought a foreward seemed “presumptuous” of [...]

by Gary Klein
ISBN: 0262611465
Klein has written an academic (but not pinheaded) book about how people make decisions in the real world, versus how they are observed to make decisions in a lab under tightly controlled and artificial conditions. He calls this approach naturalistic decision-making.
He and his colleagues spent time interviewing and observing key decision makers [...]

by Jason
ISBN: 156097463X
This is Norwegian artist Jason’s first (translated into English, anyway, and possibly his first of any kind) graphic novel, but the second of his that I have read.
His “people” are all variations of birds, dogs, and rabbits, but what is important about them is not how they appear, but their humanity as it [...]

by James Kochalka
ISBN: 0966535312
This is one of Kochalka’s earlier graphic novels; it was published in 1998, and pre-dates the arrival of his cat Spandy.
Magic Boy and Amy are at the center of this story, which contains many elements to those familiar with Kochalka’s work: robots, questions about the meaning of life and art, the earth [...]

by Ted Naifeh
ISBN: 1929998422
This book is the collection of issues 1-4 of the series. Naifeh wrote and drew the comic, and he is clearly in command of his story. We are introduced to a whole creepy world here: our isolated little heroine Courtney; her leeching ambitious parents; a scary old uncle, and of course, various [...]

by Brady Udall
ISBN: 0671017020
I wanted to read this short story collection because I loved The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint so much that I wanted to get my hands on whatever else Udall has published.
This collection was published before the novel, and I could see how the voice behind these stories could grow into the [...]

by Colson Whitehead
ISBN: 0385498209
Whitehead, author of The Intuitionist, has written an unusual second book.
Even though there isn’t an elevator inspector in sight, if you read his first book you will know immediately he wrote this one. He shows the same command of language, quirky humor, and relentless sense of style here. For example, here is [...]