It’s true, they are two of my favorite things. November couldn’t be a crazier time. I would like to go ahead and apologize for how unstable I will be. You can thank Whiskerino, NaNoWriMo, and the other things on my plate. HERE is where you can keep track of my four-month-long beard-in-progress. And HERE is where you can see the word count of my novel. The novel will be called TRY AGAIN, and is a new draft of the thing I wrote last year, originally titled BRILLIANT! Here’s a... Read Full Story

I’m not sure I can tell you why, but I have this weird fixation with being introduced to authors by reading one of their completely inessential works first. For years Carrie has been singing the praises of Michael Lewis, to which I’ve always given a polite nod, mostly because of my distaste for sports. Especially in a state like Alabama, it’s hard enough to dodge conversations about this team vs. that. So why would I want to read about the stuff? The back cover of Home Game ... Read Full Story

The hilariously-titled Shoplifting From American Apparel is a very new novella by Tao Lin that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Dialogue carries the story first and foremost. The main character Sam, his friends, exes, and fellow inmates say the strangest things aloud and over Gmail chat. It’s generally funny and sometimes half-profound. The book jumps cities and segments of time quickly, and at first I felt that everything in Sam’s world seemed unimportant, dirty a... Read Full Story

For #44 I wanted to read one of the books by my writing professor, Kerry Madden. I decided to go with a copy of her biography on Harper Lee first, after finding it at the library. Kerry tells about Harper’s (Nelle’s) early life in Monroeville, Alabama, her lifelong relationship with Truman Capote, and most importantly, her world as everything about it was transformed by the publication of a book called To Kill A Mockingbird. The amount of research Kerry conducted is astounding, es... Read Full Story

I think this is probably the third time I’ve read or listened to King Dork, so I’ll keep it short. Of course, like everything else that’s come from the brain of Dr. Frank, it’s well worth revisiting. This time I listened to the audiobook, laughing to stay alive at work, and trying to pick out subtle clues to where the sequel might lead. For one, in a final scene, Sam Hellerman starts talking about “connections” from the past, which really weirds out Tom Hen... Read Full Story

I never got around to reviewing this for Some New Trend, like I planned to. I couldn’t have enjoyed Nick Hornby’s contribution to the YA world more. I didn’t know a thing about Slam before popping in the audiobook. It’s the story of two teenagers who do the unprotected sex thing and then get stuck with a baby. But really it’s so much more than that. Where pop culture often shows the struggles and issues young females face in this situation, it rarely gives a vivi... Read Full Story

I finished #41 a couple weeks back. So my mini-reviews have been falling by the wayside yet again. Jonathan Franzen’s The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History was great. The sentences in this small book of memoirs are strong, smooth, and intelligent. It’s the way he tells it. Franzen does what writing should, offering a new way of looking at the world, providing social observations about Charlie Brown, being a part of a weird 70s cult-like church group called The Fellowship, and bi... Read Full Story

For #40 I read a novel called Basil’s Dream by Christine Hale. You can read my proper review at the Alabama Writers’ Forum. Read Full Story

The intention has been to keep things positive, and with a few exceptions, I think I’ve managed to do so. That said, I must warn you. There’s no covering up, the novel pictured on the left provides nothing the jacket claims. The story is not “hilarious,” nor is it “subversively compelling.” I’d like to meet this guy’s publicist and friends who said so. Since I’ve fallen into mostly awesome stuff in the 2009 in Books project, I was bound t... Read Full Story

Is anyone making their way to Sidewalk this weekend? If so, the real question is, what are you seeing? So far I think I’m in for The Red Ace Cola Project, Dear Lemon Lima (pictured above), and possibly another movie or two if I can be talked into it. Read Full Story