the last book i loved
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Christopher Forsley: The Last Book I Loved, Blue Movie
Every time I watch a porno—whether it’s Lesbians in the Produce Section or Cheerleader Tryouts with Coach Lester—I start critiquing the plot, the acting, and even the lighting. Why doesn’t, I ask myself, a real director make a porno, a…
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Scott Onak: The Last Book I Loved, Satori in Paris
I didn’t need any books: I was finishing up grad school in Idaho and moving to—well—that wasn’t quite known to me. But here was a building on the Latah County Fairgrounds full of books, and here was Satori in Paris…
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Sara Habein: The Last Book I Loved, Midnight Picnic
How our living selves affect the afterlife has been, and will continue to be, a matter of debate. In literature alone, countless stories have explored the stages of death, of grieving, and that of otherworldly retribution. In Midnight Picnic, Nick Antosca…
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Ari Messer: The Last Book I Loved, Ablutions
Why is the second person such a natural and addictive tense–perhaps the only honest one–when writing about drug abuse and a foggy recovery? For years, you haven’t been able to stop asking this question. Reading Patrick deWitt’s Ablutions: Notes for…
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The Last Book I Loved: The Blind Side
I remember being 18 years old, secretly thinking that all the good writers were dead or past their prime. I wanted to be born in the twenties, where wilderness was untamed and fiction was wide open. I knew there must…
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Devon Shepherd: The Last Book I Loved, The Sheltering Sky
I loved this book. Haunting prose. Exotic locale. Existentialist themes. I stayed up much too late to read it, enchanted – entranced even – only to wake up with bags under my eyes and vague memories of desert-sun dreams. The…
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The Last (Poetry) Book I Loved: Star Dust by Frank Bidart
Everything from the theme of creation to the understated technique resonates; it is a book of poetry which has inspired both reflection and furious meditations of my own as I spin my own arcs from Bidart’s example. It is excellent…
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The Last Book I Loved: Sailing Alone Around the World
“Remember, Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide!” – Joshua Slocum, sailing through a storm south of Tierra del Fuego. When Joshua Slocum (author of Sailing Alone Around the World, first published in Great Britain by…
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John Knight: The Last Book I Loved, Eros the Bittersweet
You’ve got to be good to write about love. You’ve got to be really good. Most of the time, when love is the task, a writer just gets carried away recycling impossible words and ends up a sap. Not Anne Carson.
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Jake Cline: The Last Book I Loved, Mother Night
If he had not been such a pacifist, Kurt Vonnegut would have made a hell of a boxer. I say this knowing full well that Vonnegut was not an impressive physical specimen. His posture was miserable, his countenance was haggard…
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Aaron Davidson: The Last Book I Loved, Best Music Writing 2007
I paid $2 for a bargain-bin copy of Best Music Writing 2007. The price tag still covers “s” and “i.” It’s guest edited by Robert Christgau. I’d pay two dollars for anything with contributions by David Byrne, Sasha Frere-Jones, Jonathan…
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The Last Book I Loved: Sick City
In classic noir fashion, Sick City opens with a death. Jeffrey, a male prostitute junkie, goes to wake up his lover and sugar daddy (a retired Los Angeles cop with a taste for kinky sex) only to find him dead.…