Author: driftlessareareview

Besides writing book reviews for his own blog, Karl writes reviews and essays for several other venues. He lives in the Midwest and has a full-time job. Posts might be irregular, but a commitment to quality is the first priority. The blog has a variety of subject matter, ranging from guilty pleasures to out-of-print hidden gems.
book reviews, books2 Comments

The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by Steve Wick

driftlessareareview

“There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.” – Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, September 26, 2001. During a cold December day, William L. Shirer, foreign correspondent for CBS, hurries to Berlin’s Tempelhof airport.  He wants to catch a plane to take him out of Germany and on to Spain, from Spain eventually to New York City and the safety and security of the United States.  Steve Wick’s The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the … Continue reading The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by Steve Wick

Rate this:

80s SFF, Critic's Notebook, filmLeave a comment

Critic’s Notebook: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies of the 1980s

driftlessareareview

Introduction “Interest in film, pop and television stars and science fiction peaks between the ages of 12 and 13.” Media Genres and Content Preferences by Carmelo Garitaon and Jose A. Oleaga, Patxi Juaristi (The London School of Economics and Political Science). One of the most challenging aspects of criticism is Taste.  How is it formed?  What differences are there between Good Taste and Bad Taste?  Can these differences be investigated with an objective concrete analysis, or is it a phenomenon based entirely on subjective experiences? The creation of Taste occurs when we grow up, sifting through the various cultural products … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies of the 1980s

Rate this:

books, film, Interviews, nature, The Internet, TV1 Comment

Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham

driftlessareareview

West Coast author Mary Kennedy Eastham has been quite busy lately.  Her book of poetry, the Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget, was one of my first review copies I received.  I talked with her via an email interview.  Here is what she had to say about her recent projects, the art of writing, her love of dogs, and her favorite writers. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR CREATIVE PROJECTS? I am trying so hard to finish my novel NIGHT SURFING.  Writing a novel is very different from writing a short story or writing a poem.  There are so many more … Continue reading Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham

Rate this:

book reviews, books, The Internet, TV1 Comment

Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor

driftlessareareview

    One doesn’t have to walk far into a bookstore to get assaulted with self-help books and memoirs.  Much like people with blogs, everyone thinks they have something valuable to say.  In addition to memoirs by randomly generated Kardashians the upcoming election season brings with it the fatuous “campaign biography” ghostwritten by the candidate’s staffers not currently concocting an attack ad or planting a piece of journalism with a compliant member of the Fourth Estate.  It is with relief that Kimberly A. Taylor’s hybrid memoir/self-help book is available.  Play Fair! The Art of Relationship and Friendship presents the reader with … Continue reading Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor

Rate this:

books, InterviewsLeave a comment

Interview with author Chad Faries

driftlessareareview

Chad Faries is the author of The Book of Knowledge and his forthcoming memoir Drive Me Out of My Mind.  Chad’s Midwestern upbringing and international experiences give his poetry a unique perspective.  His brand of poetry possesses a singular combination of the humbly playful and historically engaged.  In the words of publisher Lisa Flowers, founder of Vulgar Marsala Press, “his work [is like ] a trip through Disney through the eyes of Woody Guthrie through the eyes of Ezra Pound, like an ever-overlapping pair of bifocals.”  Chad answered my questions I emailed to him. What are some of your current projects? … Continue reading Interview with author Chad Faries

Rate this:

book reviews, books, film, food, Permanent Press1 Comment

The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

driftlessareareview

KUMAR(to Goldstein)Well, if you have the yellow fever tonight, there’s a rocking Asian party over at Princeton tonight. GOLDSTEIN Man, I have the yellow plague. There’s nothing sexier than a hot Asian chick…or dude for that matter… Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (Danny Leiner, 2004), script by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing.  But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867) by Karl Marx A Woman of Property David Schmahmann … Continue reading The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

Rate this:

books, film, food, Interviews, The Internet1 Comment

An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

driftlessareareview

Can you explain why you named your press Vulgar Marsala? We’re named for an image in DH Lawrence’s “Medlars and Sorb Apples”, from his seminal/groundbreaking collection “Birds, Beasts, and Flowers”.  I toyed with an assortment of names that encompassed a lot of literary and mythological and film references, etc, but ultimately this one stuck…more intuitively/impulsively than intellectually.  It’s an eye-catching name…maybe an amusingly misleading one, until you know what its axe is (some have even assumed it’s some kind of sex publication /site, what with the word “vulgar”). What attracted you to the work of Chad Faries? I’ve described his … Continue reading An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

Rate this:

book reviews, books, nature1 Comment

The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

driftlessareareview

With inspiration taken from Arthur Mee’s turn of the century work called The Children’s Encyclopedia, “that cared nothing about alphabetization,” Chad Faries wrote The Book of Knowledge.  Like The Children’s Encyclopedia, this little volume of poetry represents “a tapestry of complete knowledge,” embracing everything from cartography to sexuality to regional history (in this case, Iron County, Michigan) to animals and the avant-garde.  Published by the puckish literary upstart calling itself The Vulgar Marsala Press, the Book of Knowledge has four sections with abundant illustrations peppered throughout. Faries possesses a poetic voice intellectual, eccentric, and playful.  Despite his PhD in Creative … Continue reading The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

Rate this:

book reviews, booksLeave a comment

My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

driftlessareareview

Within the confines of 85 pages, Eric Wilson’s My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing offers a cornucopia for the aspirant writer.  The tiny book defies conventional categories, much like its subject, William Blake (1757 – 1827).  A Blake biography, a creative writing manual, and a map of influences, epigrams, and philosophy all come into play. William Blake was a poet and artist living in the Britain, who, like his contemporary the Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814), lived between the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era.  Blake grew up as a Christian Nonconformist and struggled with making … Continue reading My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

Rate this:

book reviews, books2 Comments

Digging Deeper: A Memoir of the Seventies, by Peter Weissman

driftlessareareview

Peter Weissman’s I Think, Therefore Who Am I? took place during the Summer of Love.  It was an intimate exploration of the Sixties, the most glorified or vilified decade in recent history, depending on how far one lives from Real America™ (patent pending).  His second volume of memoirs, Digging Deeper: a Memoir of the Seventies, chronicles Weissman’s life during a decade not liked by anyone, except perhaps the occasional roaming hipster burnishing his or her sense of ironic superiority. The memoir begins with Weissman crawling from the muck of hallucinogenic incoherence.  Weissman’s inability to speak to others provides a dark … Continue reading Digging Deeper: A Memoir of the Seventies, by Peter Weissman

Rate this: