Books recently started:
- The Investigation, by Stanislaw Lem
- New Directions 15 (International Issue, 1955)
Books recently finished:
- Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature, trans. and ed. by Warren F. Motte, Jr.
- The Investigation, by Stanislaw Lem
August 28, 2008
What I’m Reading 8-28-2008
August 18, 2008
Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury
Reading fiction by Ray Bradbury is a gamble. He’s created some beautiful stories, but you have to slog through a lot of mawk to find them. He’s a much better fiction writer than he is an essayist.
Zen in the Art of Writing consists of reprinted articles (and some awful poems) on the art and craft of writing. Bradbury provides good advice for beginners — write every day, read widely, have fun — but little of it is original, and even with repetitions (of which there are many), this advice accounts for only about a dozen pages. Much more space is devoted to mythologizing Bradbury’s childhood.
If you want to share Bradbury’s admiration of his ten-year-old self, this is the book for you. If you want insights into the fiction-maker’s art, look elsewhere.
What I’m Reading 8-18-2008
It’s been a while, and I won’t try to catch you up on all my reading the past couple of months. Let’s just go with recent books.
Books recently started:
- How I Came to Love Jazz, by Phyllis Becker
- Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury
- Kaspian Lost, by Richard Grant
- Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature, trans. and ed. by Warren F. Motte, Jr.
- The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, ed. by Hayden Carruth
Books recently finished:
- How I Came to Love Jazz, by Phyllis Becker
- Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury
- Kaspian Lost, by Richard Grant
