One of the most important albums of my life is the album I spent almost twenty years not listening to.
Diary of the Fall – Michel Laub
According to these numbers, the narrator knows more about his grandfather (38+22=60) than either about his father (31+28=59) or about himself (31+26=57).
I don’t trust adults to write about youth as much as I did before I became an adult myself.
Vannevar Bush’s Automatic Microtome
There is no way to know, but perhaps Vannevar’s vision by slicing could have taken different forms in the contemporary age. I cannot stop thinking about this slicing-as-vision in parallel with contemporary means of control.
The 10 Best-Worst Things I Ate in 2014
Instead of reviewing the best, which risks a sappy food-gazing given voice, it might be more revealing to ask: what were the worst things I ate this year?
My Salinger Year – Joanna Rakoff
Oh, the ironies! given Holden’s low opinion of David Copperfield. To recall, he called coming of age novels written in the Copperfield mold crap.
The questionnaire punctures the bravado of the manifesto, which is such a singular, almost bold, optimistic doctrine or document. The questionnaire allows room for doubt, ambivalence, dissent, and debate.
Stuff I Read In The Last Year or So
Life is all your clothes in piles all over the floor, and sometimes the pieces of clothing get up and move to a different pile at night when you’re asleep.
A Distant Father – Antonio Skármeta
Brevity is not a shortcoming here and in no way keeps the narrative from being a fulfilling read.
Reads almost like slapstick Sebald, Bernhard on laughing gas.