Odds and Ends

• I was somewhat disappointed that book reviewing responsibilities kept me at home this weekend, as I would have greatly enjoyed going into Manhattan to see fellow bookblogger Laila Lalami read from her short story collection, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits. If you can make it to the Astor Place B&N tonight, you should go and tell her I said hello—I can’t make it, which means I’m going to have to wait until next February before she comes ’round this way again.

• People might say it’s just because I have it in for Steve Almond, but let’s be honest: Is there anything in his appreciation of Sarah Silverman that wasn’t pointed out by Dana Goodyear—first and better? Almond even quotes most of the same material (although, in all fairness, that could just be because Silverman doesn’t have that much worth quoting).

• It’s enough to make a man homesick for Boston: Haruki Murakami at Tufts and Jonathan Lethem at MIT.

5 November 2005 | uncategorized |