Karl Wolff begins 2013 reviewing Seth Kaufman’s novel “The King of Pain,” about a reality TV producer lodged beneath his giant home entertainment system, his predicament complicated by reading a short story collection about prisons written by someone named Seth Kaufman. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: The King of Pain, by Seth Kaufman
In this installment of Mondays with the Supremes, we look ideological purity, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Justice Clarence Thomas. Continue reading Mondays with the Supremes: Part VII: The Ideological Litmus Test
Today at CCLaP: In his last essay for On Being Human, Karl Wolff looks at ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth,’ Nicholas Roeg’s 1976 sci-fi art-house masterpiece. Continue reading On Being Human: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Nicholas Roeg)
A review of Deconstructing Organized Crime, a uncommonly readable academic text about the intersections of organized crime, terrorism, and globalization. Continue reading Reviews in Brief: Deconstructing Organized Crime: a historical and theoretical study, by Joseph L. Albini and Jeffrey Scott McIllwain
This book proves its usefulness in its good timing. Coleman and Weaver investigate the numerous pop cultural pieces here, analyzing how specific treatments reflect attitudes of society at large. Continue reading Reviews in Brief: Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, by Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver
These remarks will be classified in The Critic’s Notebook. Unlike a more tightly constructed and formal book review, these notes will possess a larval nature: impressionistic, half-formed, spontaneous. Continue reading Translation Tuesdays: The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell
This week in the CCLaP series “On Being Human,” Karl Wolff analyses Samuel Beckett’s groundbreaking “Trilogy,” where the famed avant-garde writer sought the essence of what it is to be human by stripping away the setting, plot, and characters of three small novels in a row. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: The Trilogy, by Samuel Beckett
Video clips from the CCLaP Podcast Dreadful series held at Quimby’s Bookstore in Wicker Park, Chicago. Continue reading Podcast Dreadful @ Quimby’s … now with video clips!
A Spy in the Ruins by Christopher Bernard constructs a postapocalyptic anti-narrative replete with verbal richness, political aggression, and erotic tenderness. Continue reading Critical Appraisals: A Spy in the Ruins, by Christopher Bernard
My essay on a Jack Gilbert poem is over on thethepoetryblog. Click the link to go to the essay. Continue reading An essay on a Jack Gilbert poem @ thethepoetryblog
The Driftless Area Review 