The Daily Sabbatical
Music, Books, and Assorted Maunderings

It's finally out, and it is a lovely little book if I do say so myself.  And boy, it seems so much cleverer now that it is bound and formatted.  It's too late for Christmas, but all of your philosophical friends and relatives would no doubt appreciate A Dialogue on Consciousness as a New Year's present.  Great for birthdays, holidays, and hell, even Fridays.  Amazon… Read More

Salvatore Scibona is an extraordinary writer.  His first book, The End, was nominated this year for The National Book award, and I'd say there is a very good chance he would have won it had the staggeringly good trilogy by Matthiesson not been allowed in the race.  What's even more impressive, I suspect this author will only get better.  Scibona is a crafter of sentences in the DeLillo tradition--and in fact his dialogue, at times, feels like that of the Don.  His… Read More

The blog largehearted boy has posted an extensive list of links to "best of the year" lists, for both books and music.  An excellent resource.
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At this point I've read almost everything Vladimir Nabokov ever published.  There is simply no other writer like him.  When I finish reading his prose, I immediately feel like holing up in a garrett somewhere and crafting sentences that dance and narrative strategems that make a first reading useless.  If I actually get so far as to put pen to paper, I feel so dwarfed by the master that I quickly consign my pen to the dustbin. Mary is Nabokov's first novel, written when he was in Berlin in 1925, shortly after… Read More

I'm always tempted to break up my anally alphabetical ordering of books to create a special shelf of books that, to me, constitute lessons in writing.  These are not necessarily the best books--although they often are--but they are the books I feel I could read and reread in hopes of penetrating the secrets of their consruction.  They are the books that would signpost the way to the literary style I'd most like to emulate.    Body Snatcher by Juan Carlos Onetti would find a place on that shelf. Onetti remains a bit… Read More

Coming soon.... Read More

I have two episodes before I am done with The Wire, and I am sick.  I already want more.  It might be the best TV show ever made, and though I'm sure I'll rewatch it from start to finish, it just won't be the same.  Still, I can take some heart: the writers for The Wire are out there writing novels, and if Lush Life by Richard Price is any indication, they are almost as good.
As Dennis Lehane says on the dust jacket, Price is one of the best writers of dialogue this country has.  (Actually, Lehane says the best we have ever had.)  His writing… Read More

Suite Francaise is worth reading if for no other reason than for the unique perspective it has on the second world war and the French occupation in particular.  The harrowing story of its author gilds the work with both authenticity and poignance.  Irene Nemirovsky was a Jewish, Russian born novelist who achieved great success with novels such as David Golder, which became a play and a movie.  She lived in Paris during the French Occupation, and decided to write a five volume work about what she was seeing.  Before she finished, however,… Read More

This is a really good list.  Of course the fact that every man should read them doesn't imply that not every woman should read them.  Many of these books I would recommend to anyone.  Raymond Carver, Blood Meridian, John Cheever, Revolutionary Road...how good can it get?  I'm a fan of a surprising number of there. Thanks to Kerry for letting me know about this! Read More

You heard it here first: More Than It Hurts You will be nominated for the National Book Award this year.  It reminds me of no book more than The Corrections, which despite the Franzen backlash is a masterpiece.   Strauss might not have attained the perfect touch Franzen achieved in that novel, but More Than It Hurts You shares its general profile and spirit, while also being an unpredictable page turner. The story centers around a possible case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.  If you… Read More