Tag: Books

Aside

So, it seems my post about getting the swank edition of From Hell, has caught the attention of Eddie Campbell himself, and he tells some of the story of how that edition came to be. Another great side effect of this is that a couple of the other owners of the swank edition put up links to scans of the paintings in their copies.

Painfully limited

I’ve made no secret of the fact that Eddie Campbell is one of my favourite comic creators—not to mention one of the top five living people I’d want to spend a night drinking and talking BS with—and that I think Alan Moore is probably the best comic writer to have yet lived. So it’s probably not surprising that I’m a… Read more →

Book==Great, Publication==Confusing.

A few years back I made this statement on the blog: I have read everything Graham Joyce has ever published, and none of them have been less than excellent. Well, in the intervening years, a few more books have been published, but the statement remains true. In fact, if anything it’s more true for the book I just read… although… Read more →

Persistent Remnants

So, irony–I spent ten consecutive days in all day meetings in Boston, and what are the things that are the important concrete results of the trip for me (as opposed to my employers)? A signed book, and a signed CD. Important persistent result number one, is this: Amanda, as she apparently always does, stayed after the show to sign things.… Read more →

Completely Unrelated Items

Continuing on the theme of my being impressed by the kind of madness that is constructive (this dates back to at least the first time I found out about Korczak Ziolkowski), let us take a moment to reflect upon the kind of person who could build the Underground Fortress. I am weirdly attracted to the idea. It panders to both… Read more →

Aside

You may also remember my pleasant surprise at how much I enjoyed Titan’s first collection of Nemi strips. I’ve been reading the strips online fairly religiously since. The second collection of strips also showed up today, and I’m quite looking forward to going through it to see which, if any, of the strips collected in this volume will be new to me. Apparently the ones in Metro are a sanitized subset of what’s in the collections. There’s a preview of 24 strips from the collection (use the cursor keys to navigate the set) at Titan’s site.

Aside

While we’re talking about reviews… You may recall me mentioning how much I was enjoying Tom Disch‘s Word Of God. I noted this weekend that Paul Witcover–himself a gifted novelist–has written a particularly good review. Until I get off my butt and write my thoughts on the book out, allow me to point you to Paul’s.

A short break from politics

And now, a few observations about things completely unrelated to either North American election: That Wisdom book showed up today. Totally worth the money. It’s been a long time since I bought a “coffee table book”, but if I had a coffee table I’d be proud to leave this out on it. You know where I’m find more interesting reading… Read more →

Aside

“I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” That’s one of many, many tidbits to be found at the site for Andrew Zuckerman’s new book, Wisdom. Go there. Watch the clip. Then see if you can resist the urge to buy the book.

Screen Reading

“The inclination to read a huge Victorian novel, the capacity to untangle a metaphor in a line of verse, the desire to study and emulate a distant historical figure, the urge to ponder a concept such as Heidegger’s ontic-ontological difference over and over and around and around until it breaks through as a transformative insight — those dispositions melt away… Read more →

Diverse practyk in many sundry werkes

My goal is to redefine the whole history of rhyme ‘Cause the only way to free the soul is to free the mind And no wisdom as old as this should be confined To total mystery, so we’ll just read the signs And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science In this linguistically-composed pristine design –extracted from Rhyme Renaissance… Read more →

Casa El Profundo

It’s been a while since I did a “this recent discovery suggests Lovecraftian spookiness” post, so let’s do one of those. According to National Geographic, a series of partially underwater temples—”A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves”— have been found off the Yucatan. The article talks about how these temples map onto legends of the Mayan… Read more →

Aside

I have 10.5 hours of scheduled meetings tomorrow. 10.5 hours. Scheduled.

I should totally just call in sick and lie around the hotel reading Disch and Akunin.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada
This work by Chris McLaren is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada.