Before I dove into my epic project of annual rereading I decided to make my way, for the first time, through one of Caitlin's favorite books from her childhood: Ellen Raskin's murder mystery The Westing Game. The book's events are set in motion by the will of corporate mogul Sam Westing as Westing's posthumous commands [...]
Category: Books
2001: A Space Odyssey
For more than two years, as a college student, I worked for a public library. The best part of that job was when, every few weeks, I got to empty a giant bin of books into the recycling. These books were damaged or out of date or donations for which space couldn't be found. If you're [...]
The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time
One of the hardest things to do as a writer is put your reader squarely in the mind of a unique and intricate character. Mark Haddon, with The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time, has done this just about as well as anyone I've ever read. Through the eyes of Christopher John Francis [...]
13 Little Blue Envelopes
I once told a friend that I didn't have any guilty pleasures because I don't understand feeling guilty about whatever art you happen to enjoy. This remains true. However, as we've seen, sometimes this lack of guilt/shame means that I end up investing in works for which I am way, way outside of the target [...]
Gone Girl
Caitlin often chastises me for being the kind of person who recommends a lot of books and very rarely accepts (and subsequently reads) the recommendations of others. She is, of course, very right about all of this. So, partly in an effort to appease her and partly to see how the other side lives, I [...]
The Sirens of Titan
No one really compares to Kurt Vonnegut, do they? His voice was so unique among his peers that it became almost instantly recognizable. And it first fully took shape in 1959's The Sirens of Titan. Following on the relatively unremarkable heels of Player Piano, his 1952 debut, The Sirens of Titan is brimming with the sharp wit and [...]
An Abundance of Katherines
An Abundance of Katherines is a book about an anagrammatically-minded child prodigy struggling with the fact that he might not be so special after all. It's also a book about a romance-predicting algorithm, a road trip, and coming out of your shell. Oh, and it's kind of a comedy. It's a complicated - and excellent [...]
Good Will Grayson
When I recently suggested to Caitlin that she should read a couple of John Green's books - that I thought she would like them - the resulting conversation went a little something like this: CAITLIN IS ON THE COUCH, WATCHING FINDING BIGFOOT. BRENNAN ENTERS, STAGE LEFT. Brennan: You should really read a couple of John Green's [...]
Swords In the Snow
There can be little debate that Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) was prescient. It imagined a digital landscape (the Metaverse) that bears a striking resemblance to a number of current-day e-communities like Second Life or even the World of Warcraft. It also described a massive future shift in the capitalist power structure that allowed for corporatocracy to replace [...]
The Ocean and the Word
Spells and enchantments are enticing to writers because they suggest that words - the writer's most beloved commodity - have power and value beyond what simply appears on the page. And in 1968 Ursula LeGuin incorporated the similarities between writing and magic into her masterful bildungsroman A Wizard of Earthsea. Long before Harry Potter, A Wizard of Earthsea is the [...]
Songs & Stories 