Blog Archives

revisting the NY Times book review

It’s been a long time since I read the NY Times book review. Chalk it up to business and professional disinterest — I never have enough time to read everything…

Hey, look at SA on the Book Bench!

The New Yorker takes note of S.A. Griffin’s poetry bomb on its book blog, the Book Bench. Go SA. Go Book Bench. Go poetry. Go bombs. Oh, wait….

I never wrote for Kirkus, but these guys did

Yesterday, Nielsen announced that it would shutter several publications, including the review-o-matic Kirus, Kirkus, for its willingness to go negative. I never wrote for Kirkus, and as I haven’t published…

Hear me on The California Report

This week I reviewed the book In My Father’s Shadow by Chris Welles Feder for the weekly magazine of the California Report. The show is broadcast by public radio stations…

10 favorite books of 2009

The LA Times list of favorite books of 2009 is now online, a total of 50 books in two parts, fiction/poetry and nonfiction. It’s a master list that is compiled…

PEN tonight

Heading to the PEN USA West awards tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In my many years in LA, I’ve never before been to the pink icon of Beverly Hillsiness….

We wear glasses, read books and like cats.

That’s my mom at age 13 in 1955. The name of the cat is long forgotten.

Sarah Palin’s book is not a book

I know it comes between covers and is sold in bookstores. But it’s not a book, it’s a celebrity media push. Maybe it’s a campaign advertisement. Maybe it’s a talk…

Talking to Colum McCann

I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately for Jacket Copy. The latest, with Colum McCann — conducted all of yesterday — is up now on Jacket Copy. Not only…

Reading EATING ANIMALS

I consumed Jonathan Safran Foer’s book EATING ANIMALS very quickly, mostly because I had less than 24 hours between the time I got my hands on it and our scheduled…