Posts by author
Seth Fischer
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
It’s summertime. BookExpo is in the past. Writers have taken a little break from accosting critics. The book blogs finally have some free time. And like most people, they are spending that time poking around the Internet and finding lots…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
It’s Sunday again, which means that my Grandmother is pacing impatiently somewhere beyond the grave, worrying about the fate of my immortal soul.
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How to Save a Neglected Book
A reader writes to Cynthia Crossen at the Wall Street Journal, “Morley Callaghan is my favorite 20th-century novelist. His “That Summer in Paris” is among the best of memoirs. … Every book lover can list authors who were wonderful and…
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Saddam Hussein the Poet
On Thursday, the National Security Archives obtained and released 20 FBI “interviews” with Saddam Hussein. One of the things Hussein did, apparently, was read his interviewer some of his poetry. Unfortunately, these accounts don’t actually include transcripts of any of…
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“The memoir of literary obsession”
Over at New York, Sam Anderson has a review of Elizabeth Hawes’ Camus, a Romance in which he identifies the genre “memoir of literary obsession.” I’d never thought of this as a genre, but it’s clearly an important one, most…
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The Worst Library Books Ever
A couple of Michigan librarians have started a web site designed to publicize terrible library books for a) our amusement and b) to bring to light the need for libraries to keep their shelves stacked with current books. The most…
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The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
And I’m back! Thanks very much to Michael Berger for filling in for me while I was gone! He did a damn fine job. Lots has happened over the last few weeks:
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
Welcome to July 5th! Thanks to America, you are now missing limbs, hard of hearing, and hungover. Don’t worry. It’s still a fine day to read book reviews.
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Sunday Iran News Links
The Iranian government arrests over 100 opposition leaders. It looks like this might get really, really violent. Talking Points Memo has a photo gallery of what’s happening. After all other forms of communication are cut, there are reports of Twitter-organized rooftop…
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Being a Woman Before Feminism
Bookslut came across this hilarious and somewhat brilliant essay by Lynn Barber from last December in which she talks about what it was like to come of age before feminism: “We had no sex education. We had a lesson on reproduction in…