Tag: Books
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On Monsters: Reviewing Coupland’s Player One.
Over the course of yesterday afternoon, I listened to Douglas Coupland’s speech he delivered at the 2010 Massey Lectures. Player One: What is to Become of Us is unlike other Massey Lectures. It is a novel, and was read aloud by its author over the course of five hours. It is available in audiobook and…
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Shelf Space {Flash Fiction}
This story is missing something, just one paragraph. Something to put after “I showed you.” While I’m waiting for that paragraph to hit me, I’ll just let the piece camp out here. – – – Do you remember when we first met? When you were lost in a city strange to you, where I helped…
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An Excerpt from My Upcoming Kindle Release
Here’s an excerpt from a longish (~2500-3000 word) essay I’m writing for publication as a Kindle Book. It frames current belief in the college degree vis-a-vis traditional monotheistic religions’ value systems, and critiques it thusly. Do enjoy: Other doctrines with similar promises of deliverance (from evil, which is defined by each organization) have since emerged…
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From Generosity, On Human Capability and Love
Here is a quote from Richard Powers’s novel, Generosity. After several months of off-and-on reading, I finished it today. Saint Augustine, the old Berber, once wrote, Factus est Deus homo ut homo fieret Deus: God became man so that man might become God. He also said, even more popularly, Dilige et quod vis fac: Love,…
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In Defense of Fiction: On Nuance
It is in that moment where muscles twitch slightly and a pang of synaptic excitement and that initial ineffable fraction of a fraction of a second before one articulates the “huh, I never noticed that before” that one experiences nuance.
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My Favorite Books of the Summer Thus Far, pt. 1
For some, summer is a time to take on an internship, to travel, to spend time with friends and (if so inclined) family. For me, summer is about reading the books that the University of Chicago’s rather absurdly demanding curriculum precludes me from reading during the year. This is not to say that I don’t…
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On The Joys of Bookcases & Cleaning Thereof
I judge people based on their bookcases. Because I’m moving into student housing this academic year, I’ve had the unique pleasure of hauling a couple hundred books from my apartment to my home in the Chicago suburbs in the heat of late June and carrying them up to my room a month later. They (i.e.…