I Can Read Your Mind

“The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy.” ‘kay, whatever, I’m gonna play Call of Duty now. Continue reading →

Keeping Literature Alive. Also, Money!

The 316,480 published books in 2010 shows that people still want to read. While I believe we are entering an age of shorter attention spans and portable libraries, I see no reason to believe good writers will go out of style. Instead, they merely face a few challenges. If writers follow a few stylistic rules and use technology to their advantage, they can speak to the modern crowd with the power of our most revered authors—and maybe earn a living in the process. Continue reading →

The Girl Who Went Out and Bought Stuff: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense

I like the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series as much as anyone else, but the reviews don’t always seem to match up with the text.  I read these on the inside cover of The Girl Who Played With Fire: “Gripping stuff…a nail-biting tale of murder and cover-ups.”  –People “Give up on the idea of sleep … Continue reading →

15 Minute Energy Review – The Fault In Our Stars

John Green is one of my favorite living authors.  He writes very intelligent young adult novels about some of the toughest facts of life, and he does so with blunt grace and fake references to modern culture. For other writers, grace and bluntness may cancel each other out.  But John has a way of showing you the unfortunate … Continue reading →

The Third Kind

Last night I was trying to read Walden again when I suddenly closed the book, walked to my bookshelf, and pulled down my copy of The Girl Who Played With Fire. This made me realize something. There are three kinds of writers. Continue reading →

A Few Preemptive Thoughts on Walden

I have started reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and a few things have stood out so far. Continue reading →

Fahrenheit 451 Reviewed in 20 minutes

Okay, I have 20 minutes left on my lunch break at work, I’m filled to the rim with Full Throttle (Blue Agave), and I want to review Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. HERE WE GO. Continue reading →

“Suffer and understand, for all that is life.”

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti Continue reading →

I Ask For Nightmares

” I shambled about, a thing that never could have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. I have no mouth. And I must scream.” Continue reading →

McCarthy and Hillcoat Are Brilliant

I watched The Road. I liked it. I REALLY liked it. It was FANTASTIC. Here’s why… Continue reading →