Tag: Essays

Graphic Novels, Novels, Random

dendrobiblio’s Top 10 Reads of 2016

t. michael

10. Stephen King’s the Dark Tower I : IV (1982 : 1997)

A somewhat difficult one to include, Stephen King’s writing, while always entertaining, is similarly always bothersome. The King-isms build and bug me. The Dark Tower series has been no different so far, with the Drawing of the Three and the Waste Lands, in particular, being hampered by bloated writing and awkward pacing. Wizard and Glass, the fourth of an eight-part series (including #4.5), and the last I read this year, was an absolutely engrossing and addictive fantasy yarn. The horror and post-apocalyptic settings were mostly removed in favor of straight fantasy in an extended flashback story — which was worrisome — but Roland’s tale was so focused and wonderfully-told that it alone puts this series on the list. I hope 2017 lets me finish the the final four books.

Continue reading “dendrobiblio’s Top 10 Reads of 2016” →

Book Reviews, Non-fiction, Short Stories

Transgressive poetry in Yuri Kageyama’s the New and Selected Yuri (2011)

t. michael

Why hadn’t I heard of Yuri Kageyama before? She’s been quietly publishing poetry, essays, and short stories for over 30 years. Her style ranges between transgressive and journalistic, channeling similar frustrations as writers like Kathy Acker, but with a style devoid of flourish or absurdity. She’s published in journals and magazines, and had her one and only poetry collection, Peeling, published by her close friend and fellow author, Ishmael Reed, in 1988. The New and Selected Yuri, published in 2011, contains 41 short works of poetry and prose dating from 1978 to 2011. It contains short stories, essays, anecdotes, conversations, cultural explanations, and a wealth of poems.

Continue reading “Transgressive poetry in Yuri Kageyama’s the New and Selected Yuri (2011)” →

Book Reviews, Non-fiction

David Quammen’s the Flight of the Iguana (1988)

t. michael

The Flight of the Iguana is a fantastic collection of 29 essays, written by David Quammen for Outside magazine between 1984 and 1987. Some of them are, at this point, dated by modern research, but Quammen is a fantastic natural science writer, whose skill at presenting complex ecological concepts to layreaders is perhaps paralleled by only John McPhee, Rachel Carson, or Robert Sapolsky.

Continue reading “David Quammen’s the Flight of the Iguana (1988)” →

Book Reviews, Non-fiction

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s the Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)

t. michael

With how widespread Thích Nhất Hạnh’s name is in the new age world, I completely misunderstood who he was and what he taught. Hanh’s Miracle of Mindfulness is a series of translated letters from 1968 — written while exiled from Vietnam — instructing young monks overseas on meditation. His ‘mindfulness’ isn’t the confusing buzzword it is today, but simply a way to inch towards the Buddhist idea of enlightenment.

I expected scam artistry akin to Eckhart Tolle or Deepak Chopra, not legitimate Buddhist teachings. There’s still a few lines of woo-woo that don’t mean anything (to me, at least), but the majority of Hanh’s Buddhist ideas reject the nonsense of religious text and simply want the the reader to be self-aware: Recognize their emotions and the emotions of others; the causes of social strife and personal discomfort; the is-ness of all things.

Continue reading “Thích Nhất Hạnh’s the Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)” →

Book Reviews, Non-fiction

we should all be feminists we should all be feminists we should all be feminists what is wrong with you we should all be feminists

t. michael

Feminism is a hard topic to talk about. It only takes two seconds for me to start rambling an incoherent mess without a point, without an argument. The underlying social issues are complex, and the complexity is so ingrained throughout every aspect of our culture that it feels impossible to tackle; how can focusing on a single aspect — a single page, a single frame, a single pixel — reflect the greater picture?

It’s impossible; it’s infuriating; it’s stupid.

Continue reading “we should all be feminists we should all be feminists we should all be feminists what is wrong with you we should all be feminists” →