Poolside Book Reviews
Poolside Book Review: Against the Day
I apologise for taking so long in posting this Poolside Book Review of the TRP’s latest, Against the Day. It’s wicked long and I haven’t been spending all that much time reading. And I’ve spend the better part of today trying to figure out exactly how to express my reaction to the novel. I’ve decided to be blunt: I did not care for it.
It saddens to me to say this, but lil’ Michiko Kakutani’s review perfectly described Against the Day as:
[A] humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.
Poolside Book Review: McSweeney’s 19
I don’t know why I continue to subscribe to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. I used to enjoy receiving semi-regular collections of short fiction. The stories were usually interesting and the volumes themselves, whether hardbound or paperback, were always of the highest quality. Unfortunately, ever since around Issue 16, things have been going to shit.
Issue 17 was a packet of faux junk mail rubber-banded together. Yes, there was some quality stuff, but just how am I supposed to store junk mail on my bookshelf? I can’t. I should just throw the damn thing out. When I received Issue 19 this morning, I was pleasantly surprised that it came in a square, fairly book-shaped box. But I soon learned that a book-shaped box does not necessarily indicate the presence of a traditional book. Issue 19 is a cigar box.
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