Read This: Murphy

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a sucker for animal stories, and Hyeondo Park’s online mini-comic Murphy does a marvelous job of storytelling. Follow the link. It’ll take you all of two-three minutes to look at, maybe, and that’s all the time Park needs to break your heart. I kinda get teary even just typing about it, to be honest. I think I’m going to leave the computer and go hug my cats now.

5 October 2006 | read this |

Read This: The Dead Fish Museum

I’ve been dying to read Charles D’Ambrosio’s latest short story collection, The Dead Fish Museum, for about a year and a half, ever since another writer recommended him to me.

If you still need convincing, check out the Stranger review where each of the eight stories gets reviewed by a different writer, including contributions from Jonathan Lethem and Dale Peck. You should also dig into a profile of D’Ambrosio in the Williamette Week, in which we learn about the book he pulled from publication because he’d grown dissatisfied by it: “With a novel, you are just inside this one world and you are committed to it. And I’d never done it before, and I got kind of messed up and thought I had to go a certain way…. It really turned me around for awhile.” Well, now he’s back—don’t miss out.

15 May 2006 | read this |