Mr. Romance
“Some books are meant to be judged by their covers. You know the kind: Comanche Rose, Petticoats and Pistols, Tender Warrior, Sea of Desires. You see them lined up in…
Features & Reviews
9213 posts
“Life,” “Man,” “Love,” and “Winter”
A recent post at The Millions, Best American Short Stories: By the Numbers, inspired a writer at B.O.M.M. to create a word cloud (using Wordle) mapping the most common words…
The Bigness of the World
There’s a lot to smile at in The Bigness of the World, Lori Ostlund’s Flannery O’Conner Award-winning collection—but there aren’t a lot of jokes. In fact, over the course of…
Mummy Was a Robot, Daddy Was a Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil
Illustrations by E. Benyaminson for Hello, I’m Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko (Russia, 1989). This is the first post of a series featuring my recently-acquired collection of Soviet children’s books from…
Smith and the City
With the release of her new memoir, Just Kids, which documents her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, punk rock idol Patti Smith has events lined up in and around New…
Notable San Francisco, This Week: 12/21-12/27
This week, celebrate Christmas (or don’t), partake in a jingly Reindeer Run Flash Mob, and then celebrate your inner goth kid at The Nightmare After Christmas. Monday 12/21: Celebrate the…
Notable New York, This Week 12/21 – 12/27
This week in New York William Hurt converses at 92Y, Steve Beck performs the Goldberg Variations, Janeane Garofalo and Todd Barry in Comedy Below Canal, Christmas Eve klezmer party, Charlie…
Jared Pappas-Kelley: The Last Book I Loved, Branwell
Douglas A. Martin’s Branwell is a novel that bleeds the line between novel and historical fact. It’s written in a style that traces the tragic story of Branwell Brontë—the lesser…
Pete Seeger–The Voice that Belongs to the Body
He picked me up at the Cold Spring train station: a tall, lone and gawky, slightly bent, grizzled, yet still unmistakable figure at the other end of the platform shading…
The Sunday Book Blog Roundup
With so many shopping days left until whenever, there is no end to the amount of printed matter out there that is riveting, ravishing and ultimately rewarding. The book blogs…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
Good morning my fellow Rumpusians, as Christmas steadily approaches and the panic to procure becomes almost reptilian, I can honestly say I’ve never handled so many one hundred dollar bills.…
The Adderall Diaries vs. Time Out New York
Time Out New York just named Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s The Adderall Diaries the best book of the year. Grab a copy from Booksmith.