reading notes

And Other Figurative Photographs
by Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Edited by James Rhem
ISBN: 1891024299
I find Meatyard’s photography fascinating. I’m not always sure what I’m looking at, even when I know what it is (a child crouching, a figure in a mask) I’m seeing. As I’ve said about his work before, the man took pictures of ghosts.
Though all [...]

by Yann Martel
ISBN: 0151010900
In his prefatory author’s note, Martel refers to the four stories in this collection as “the best results of my early years as a writer.” The other results — 16 out of 16 stories rejected, then 17 out of 19 rejected — it will presumably take more than a [...]

by Henry Petroski
ISBN: 1400040507
I expected to like this book. Even after I started reading it, I still wanted to like this book. Yet I could barely finish it, because it was abominable.
Petroski started with an interesting enough idea —- the book is subtitled “Why There is No Perfect Design” — but he beats little things [...]

Edited by Chris Ware
ISBN: 1932416080
Its a hardcover book, its a mini-comic, its the funny pages…
But there is no Superman. It is the alternative comics issue of
McSweeney’s, Number 13.

As an object, it really is a beautiful thing. Heavy paper cover,
embossed design on the book’s cover, smooth pages, and the reassuring
heft that comes with a book comprising [...]

by George Saunders
ISBN: 1573228729
Saunders tells more twisted, dark, and sickly funny stories in this collection.
Some writers go for what they hope will be shock value, or strive for some kind of so-called cred when they use violence, but Saunders is smarter than those writers are. True, some of things in his stories are gruesome [...]