I’ve sometimes wondered what Allen Ginsberg would say about the events of the last five years. He would have spoken out about the dual horrors of September 11, 2001 and the American war in Iraq, of course. He might have said some outrageous things and made headlines, or maybe he would have worked quietly to create dialogue with Muslim populations. Allen Ginsberg was good at creating dialogue (he was the one who somehow managed to persuade the aged poet Ezra Pound to …

The New York Times Book Review, supposedly a part of the Sunday New York Times, is delivered to my doorstep every Saturday morning. Advance copies begin to circulate several days earlier, though, and the online version is also usually available by the Thursday or Friday before the publication date on the cover of each issue. Still, I think it is an essential feature of the Book Review that it is a *weekend* publication, and that’s why I always post my review of the …

1. I know I’m supposed to scoff at the idea of Dickens World, which is opening in Chatham, Kent in April 2007. What can I say? I think it looks like fun and I’d like to visit. Go ahead and call me names. I’m a fool for stuff like this.

2. Sidney Thompson’s short story collection Sideshow, a Litblog Co-op Autumn 2006 nominee, has its own side story, involving an Atlantic Monthly editor who inquired as to the author’s race before …

I recently read the critics’ darling and National Book Award finalist Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski, and let me be up front with you, Internet: I hate this book. Whew. That felt good. And now that I’ve gotten it out of the way, I can move on and explain to you why.

I read Danielewski’s ticket to the fame wagon, House of Leaves, a few years ago and loved it deeply. Intensely. I curled up with it in …

Unlike many undeniably smart people I know, I won’t be reading Thomas Pynchon’s newest presumed masterpiece, Against The Day, advance copies of which have postmodernists around the globe buzzing with anticipation (the official pub-date is November 21).

I should love Thomas Pynchon. He’s a smart-ass linguistic wizard with a rebellious counter-culture streak, and that’s why I’ve spent hours trying to appreciate his books. I attempted to dive into Gravity’s Rainbow, but the ornate prose felt impossibly thick and I could …

It’s been a long time since we’ve asked this question: What are you reading?

And, whatever it is, how are you enjoying it so far? We’d really like to know.

The New York Times Book Review needs to stop getting things wrong, and when I say this I’m not blaming the freelance critics who make the mistakes but the editors who, I would certainly hope, must be fact-checking this stuff, but let substantial errors slip in week after week. Today’s offender is Jim Holt’s cover article on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which contains this head-spinning misfire:

The least satisfying part of this book is Dawkins’s treatment of the traditional arguments for the …

1. You’ve probably already heard that the Litblog Co-Op has picked Sam Savage’s Firmin as its Autumn 2006 READ THIS! selection. That was five days ago, so imagine my surprise when I wandered into my neighborhood Barnes and Noble’s (in Forest Hills, Queens) and discovered this comic novel about a literary rat nowhere on the featured stacks, nowhere on the shelves … simply nowhere at all.

Now, there is strong anecdotal evidence that Litblog Co-Op recommendations drive book sales (though I’ve never …

I found out about the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die via this post on Bookslut, and subsequently followed the link to the list of the chosen books. Of course, there’s a whole series of these 1001 books — other than the one about books, there’s 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, even 1001 Golf Holes You Must Play Before You Die (I’m …

A sound-bite rippled through the major news outlets last week when Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk was announced as the new Nobel Laureate for Literature. “It’s a political statement“, we heard from all sides, because Pamuk had recently faced a well-publicized trial in his home country for speaking about the Armenian genocide of 1915.

I heard a radio interview with Pamuk where he sounded exhausted with this sound-bite and practically begged the interviewer to change the subject. Who can blame him? …