Just another writer
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Salinger Revisited: De Daumier Smith’s Blue Period
This is, to me, one of those stories that feels like a remnant of Salinger’s pre-New Yorker writing. Perhaps this is why it was declined by The New Yorker and instead appeared in Information World Review instead (it was, in fact, the last Salinger story that appeared outside the pages of The New Yorker). There continue to be…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 317.3 PET Unlocking the Census with GIS
Sometimes in the Dewey Decimal project I end up with bad choices. In this instance, the 310s are statistics. There were a couple of almanacs and this book. Then, for added bonus, I lost the book while I was reading it. I ended up buying a used copy in excellent condition to finish reading it.…
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Beautiful Sentences: J. Robert Lennon
Stories exist to make sense of life. J. Robert Lennon, Familiar.
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Dewey Decimal Project: 306.235 FLA Girl Land
As the father of a young daughter and a member of a family which went 59 years without a female birth before my daughter’s birth, girls are a bit of a mystery to me. No sisters, no nieces, and only a single female cousin who was over a decade older than me so I knew…
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Beautiful Sentences: Denis Johnson
Looking at her I thought of going out in the fields with my wife back when we were so in love we didn’t know what it was. Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son.
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Dewey Decimal Project 291.9 ZEI Cults
There are a few places where the Dewey Decimal System betrays its Victorian origins. The 200s are one of these. 220–289 are dedicated to Christianity and the Bible. All other religions are given 290–299. So faced with the full panoply of world religions outside of Christianity, I ended up choosing this slender book on cults aimed…
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Beautiful sentences: David Bezmogis
Though he did not want to desecrate his grief, Alec nonetheless said, I just buried my father, I’d like to come up. David Bezmogis, The Free World.
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Dewey Decimal Project: 282.092 MAN Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and their Son
All it really took to hook me on the book was the title. A priest and a nun get married and have kids? Right up my alley. Where the big surprise came in (and perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise), was the fact that the Boston priest sexual abuse scandal came into play in…
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Beautiful sentences: Terese Svoboda
At least we have our own cell to settle in. At least the baby doesn’t die of the shot the way he could have, with all the cell fleas and a flesh wound and no mother. He is used to Sharon more anyway is what I suppose, what with the mother no doubt seeping milk…