My words, published. I wrote Esquire magazine a letter in response to the photo of Scarlett Johansson on their November 2013 cover. They ran my letter in their annual “The Meaning of Life” issue, diagnosing my reaction to the picture as a symptom of “The Scarlett Effect.” The Challenger Disaster, one volume in the series Perspectives […]
Oh, I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to show a little holiday cheer once in a while. Here are two stories you might like to read this holiday seaons. Both of them are by Truman Capote. Truman Capote is most famous for two books, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. However, he was also proficient at […]
Help! I spent most of my life reading dead, white, often-American males, and now I find myself teaching a class in world literature. Only you can prevent me from teaching The Odyssey again I just finished teaching my first semester of world literature. We covered some familiar works–The Iliad, the Canterbury Tales, The Epic of […]
I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish this book. I’m 80 pages into Morrissey’s autobiography (which I bought from the U.K. before it was released here in the states) and I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to finish it. I find it surprising humorless, with way too many references to […]
Here’s what I read in November. This list is rather shorter than I like my “What I Read This Months” lists to be. I was working on a large paper on William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! during November, which took way many hours of my reading time. However, the paper is now done and I am glad […]