reading notes

Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination
by Katharine Harmon
ISBN: 1568984308
Harmon’s interest in maps — as representations of the real and the imagined — spurred her to edit this collection. Sized between a trade paperback and a coffee table art book, the book is full of full-color maps and map-inspired art. Sketches, collages, satellite imagery, [...]

by Simone Lia
published by Cabanon Press
Fluffy is an almost impossibly cute bunny rabbit, one that speaks, walks on two legs, and can use round-tipped children’s scissors to cut pictures out of library books. Michael Pulcino is Fluffy’s Daddy, but of course not really, as he is a man and Fluffy is a bunny. Not that [...]

Edited by Dave Eggers
ISBN: 1932416129
This issue of McSweeney’s packs many short stories, a few nonfiction pieces, the third act of a play, some letters (including one from an actual Timothy McSweeney), and numerous small illustrations of nineteenth century flying vehicles into a novel-sized trade paperback.
I liked the two short nonfiction pieces by Lawrence Weschler (author [...]

by Mary Doria Russell
ISBN: 0375501843
I suppose there is no good way to write a novel about Jewish refugees hiding in Italy in during the last two years of World War II without it being a heartbreaking book. If it weren’t hearbreaking, it wouldn’t ring true.
Some of the heartbreak in Grace relies more on the weight [...]

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell
ISBN: 0316346624
There has been so much discussion about this book and about “tipping points” in general that I finally decided to stop reading things about Gladwell and read his book.
Gladwell has an easy, conversational style and he’s unafraid to repeat himself when driving home a point. [...]