Today in Karl Wolff’s CCLaP essay series “On Being Human,” it’s ‘The Culture’ novels by Iain Banks, in which humans, aliens, and machines all live in a post-scarcity utopia. Banks’s novels follow eccentrics and troublemakers in a society where humans can switch gender, become aliens, and even become machines. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: the Culture
The Driftless Area Review interviews Isaac Goldman, author of “Isaac: a modern fable,” to discuss folklore, favorite writers, boxing, and why you shouldn’t try to sell the Tonight Show a joke. Continue reading An Interview with Ivan Goldman
Today’s book review at CCLaP: “Make It Stay” by Joan Frank, which I calls my favorite read so far of the year. The novel explores the lives of two couples in a small Northern California town as they encounter births, deaths, joys, and frustrations. I assert, “Frank’s highly polished literary prose is definitely worth your time.” Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: Make It Stay, by Joan Frank
A limited-run series where I review three books about the Supreme Court of the United States, exploring its historical and ideological conflicts, and the transformations it wrought upon law and society. This week: Three Supreme Court cases that examine “binding precedent”, race, and national security. Continue reading MONDAYS WITH THE SUPREMES, PART III: KOREMATSU, BROWN, AND PADILLA
After an overlong hiatus, “The Art of Reviewing” returns with a profile of Roland Barthes, exploring his the French semiotician and literary critic expanded the subject matter for reviewers, his influence of pop culture studies, and his usefulness in curatorial practice. Continue reading The Art of Reviewing: Roland Barthes
Wonder is a strange book. By turns sarcastic, hallucinatory, satirical, and dreamlike, it relates the misadventures of one Victor-Denijs de Rijckel, a teacher who pursues a mysterious woman only to find himself posing as an expert of Crabbe, a messianic figure associated with Nazi collaboration. Continue reading Translation Tuesdays: Wonder (1962), by Hugo Claus
I continue my essay series “On Being Human”, this week exploring the dark world of Warhammer 40K and the Space Marines. Continue reading CCLAP Fridays: On Being Human: Warhammer 40K Space Marines
A limited-run series where I review three books about the Supreme Court of the United States, exploring its historical and ideological conflicts, and the transformations it wrought upon law and society. This week: Matters of Protocol Continue reading Mondays with the Supremes, Part II: Matters of Protocol
Karl Wolff reviews “Isaac: a modern fable,” by Ivan G. Goldman, in which Lenny, really the Isaac from the Bible, works security for a LA movie mogul and meets Ruth, a struggling academic with an equally troubled past. In this telling, the Biblical Isaac was granted eternal life and youth. He witnesses mankind’s foibles across the centuries, so long as he doesn’t fall in love or land in jail, because then they would discover he’s not like other men. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: Isaac: a modern fable, by Ivan Goldman
I begin a limited-run series where I review three books about the Supreme Court of the United States, exploring its historical and ideological conflicts, and the transformations it wrought upon law and society. Continue reading Mondays with the Supremes: Part I: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
The Driftless Area Review 