Author: D. A. Hosek

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    Where do people get stories? Do they go out in the world looking for interesting anecdotes? When they get home, do they write these things down and rehearse them? Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.  

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 599.884 WAA Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape

    I first learned  f bonobos about the time that this book was originally published. I remember reading an article about these not-chimpanzees in the Chicago Tribune. I found it fascinating that the two ape species closest in relation to humans have bifurcated into “R-rated” species with one specializing in violence (chimpanzees) and the other sex (bonobos).…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Idra Novey

    When she drifted from the kitchen to the living room, he followed, his hope rising like dough inside him. Idra Novey, Those Who Knew.  

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 583.22 MOO Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit

    When I was younger, my father took the family to Paw Paw Woods in the southwest suburbs of Chicago in search of pawpaws. We found a paw paw tree, but it had no fruit. I don’t know whether we had come at the wrong time of year or if the fruit had already been collected…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    The deepest miseries come from our capacity for remembering; if everything can be wiped away with a single swipe, then nothing has to hurt. Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.  

  • Beautiful Sentences: Idra Novey

    Her unease with her body had made his mouth dry, breaking down whatever it was in a man’s mind that kept his longings separate from his regrets. Idra Novey, Those Who Knew.  

  • Writerly resolutions: July Status

    I made good progress on the novel this month. The net word gain was 4,400 words, but I made good progress writing and rewriting chapter 13 as the diagram on this page shows. I think part of the progress’s secret was that with the exception of just one day, I managed to do some work on…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    Middle-aged men saw news of the shooting and thought: The world needs me now. They put on their capes and swooped in to the rescue, but when they got there, they found out they had no superpowers. They were just sad men in capes. So they got angry and looked for a woman to blame.…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 573.3 SPE Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery

    The 570s are general biology which includes evolution which includes the Piltdown man hoax. Since it was mentioned in passing in <cite>The Last Human</cite> and I knew very little about it, when I spotted this book on the shelves, I decided it would be my next read. It should be a great book: a fake skull…