Chris Hutchinson frames his modern epic, Jonas in Frames, with quotations. The most fitting comes before the Prologue—Aristotle’s “Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst.” Jonas in Frames presents the life of Hutchinson’s loveable protagonist and too-humble-and-bumbling-to-be-an-everyman, Jonas, in episodic bits of poetic prose. These episodic bits create a writing that is contemporary: a hybrid of both form and content. Jonas, our anti-hero is neurotic and socially awkward. His story is framed by his diagnosis, in the form of the “Lab Notes” that precede each chapter. Jonas recalls events in bits, yet his story ends with a poetic, modern Ginsberg-style rant, which merges events in popular culture:
Read Morefrom the Editor:
Sigmund Freud was tormented by the mysteries of the subconscious: Where do dreams come from? Why do we have them? What do they mean? In The Interpretation of Dreams, first published in 1899, he attempted to dissect our dreams. He mused that dreams are manifestations of our repressed daytime traumas and hidden desires. Truths, in his eyes, come to us disguised as dreams.
Read MoreDo you know that feeling you get when you finish a good workout? You’re sweaty, stretched out, and all those dopamine receptors in your brain are firing off like crazy? Well, I finally get to feel the same thing. According to Time Magazine, reading functions as a “vigorous exercise” for the brain. So that means that by reading, I get to work out. Guess who isn’t going to the gym this week?
Read MoreBun in the Oven
Dinah Cox
My old friend Eleanor was getting a divorce. A long time ago, before they were married, I lived with Eleanor and Stan and a bunch of other people in a four-bedroom house owned by the college Eleanor and I attended. Stan was much older, old enough to be considered scandalous, and we kept it under wraps he was living there at all. But he was gentle, the kind of man who played the acoustic guitar and volunteered to cook. These days, they lived in the mountains with their two sons, in a cabin heated only by a wood burning stove. I was dying to know what had precipitated their divorce.
Read MoreMark Strand, Pulitzer-winning Poet Laureate in 1999, passed away at age 80 on Saturday due to liposarcoma (fat-cell cancer) at his daughter’s house in Brooklyn.
P.D. James, creator of Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries, also known as the “Queen of Crime,” dies at age 94 on Thursday in Oxford, England. Her first work, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962, and her last, Death Comes to Pemberley, in 2013.
Fifteen years ago the musty smell of books and the sounds of vinyl and plastic CDs were the dominating and common elements of a books and media store.
These days, iPads and Kindles go anywhere we have time to read, including sometimes the doctor’s office and even the bathroom. Electronic devices hold hundreds of precious books with fast and easy access. Why waste time, energy and gas to go to an actual library and buy something that will occupy space at home?
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