reading notes

by Jonathan Carroll
ISBN: 0765300133
Carroll’s book is weird, compelling, and often funny as hell.
It concerns Frannie McCabe, former violent teen loser and present-day chief of police in a small town in New York. He isn’t a corrupt abuser of power: he grew up and became a nice guy.
That isn’t the most surprising or amazing thing that [...]

by Sylvan Barnet
ISBN: 0673522938
I decided to read this book because recently I have been drawn to visual arts in a way I never have before, and I was looking for some ideas about how you are “supposed to” write about art. Not that I have a strong desire to write according to a formula; I [...]

by Farel Dalrymple
ISBN: 1569719349
I heard the buzz about Dalrymple’s comic when it was coming out in single issues. So, apparently, had just about everyone else, because the individual issues sold out before I could buy them. More about what I see as a problem with that in a minute — what about the buzz?
In a [...]

by Chuck Palahniuk
ISBN: 0385722192
Palahniuk has some annoying quirks. The way he repeats himself reads more like he needs an editor, or that he is jack-hammering something into the reader’s head, than he is revelling in wordplay. His characters wait “a beat” (this is a peeve of mine, don’t know why) and say “I say” frequently [...]

edited by Edna Chiang and Deborah Chasman
ISBN: 0807066079
I’ll start off by saying what I know about art, and why I read this book. I know very little about Art, maybe something more about art, and in general, might be described as one of those “I know what I like when I see it” people, albeit [...]

by Jane Mendelsohn
ISBN: 0679776362
The experience of reading this book was a lot like dozing on the couch in the afternoon sun while an old movie you’ve seen countless times before is playing on the television in the next room. It is a quite pleasant experience, but what is happnening and who is talking is not [...]