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Robertson’s Book of Firsts: Who did what for the first time, by Patrick Robertson

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The first coins, the first hamburger, the first military motor vehicle.  These are but a sampling of Robertson’s Book of Firsts.  Researched and compiled by Patrick Robertson as a culmination of a lifelong passion, the book aims to chronicle not invention, but innovation.  This means a look at social and technological development and some surprising entries.  Robertson approaches this collection of firsts from a unique position.  A former government employee and a former chairman of the Ephemera Society, he also owns the largest private collection of vintage magazines in Britain.  Firsts are ephemeral, since once a first is achieved, social … Continue reading Robertson’s Book of Firsts: Who did what for the first time, by Patrick Robertson

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An Interview with Marc Schuster

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What inspired you to write The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Super Girl? I was working on a paper in graduate school when I started reading a pair of books called The Steel Drug and Cocaine Changes. As the titles suggest, they were about cocaine, and they included case studies of people who had used and abused cocaine. Some of them were very compelling, but due to the nature of the books, the stories were also very fragmentary. With The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl I wanted to flesh out some of the details in a … Continue reading An Interview with Marc Schuster

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Republic of Words: the Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857 – 1925, by Susan Goodman

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The history of the Atlantic Monthly is also the history of America.  Susan Goodman’s Republic of Words: the Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857 – 1925, traces the intellectual and editorial history of the magazine.  Conceived by luminaries including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James Russell Lowell, the Atlantic began with an adamant pro-Union perspective.  Lowell, the first editor, brought together numerous contributors associated with the Abolition and Transcendentalist movements. Goodman excels at bringing American history to life, charting the course of the magazine and the nation through the Civil War, … Continue reading Republic of Words: the Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857 – 1925, by Susan Goodman

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What I’m Reading 2012 and Other Business

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What I’m Reading 2012 Overview: I’m currently reading five books.  Each poses certain challenges (in some cases, self-imposed challenges) to me as a reader, reviewer, critic, historian, and aesthete.  While New Year’s Resolutions get broken seconds after they’re uttered, these challenges will form an informal backbone to my reading schedule.  As it stands, I want to increase the frequency of my blog posts from bimonthly to weekly.  (The same goes for my other blog, Coffee is for Closers.)  The positive responses from readers has really inspired me to do more. As you’ll see with these challenges, I want to “raise … Continue reading What I’m Reading 2012 and Other Business

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What I Hate: from A to Z, by Roz Chast

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The world is a scary place.  Roz Chast latest book, What I Hate: from A to Z, is her alphabetic exploration of her panaphobic panoply of paranoia-inducing pictures.  Her fears run the gamut of the familiar (heights, getting lost, and nightmares) to the unusual (spontaneous human combustion, balloons, and Jello 1-2-3).  Each entry has a short introduction opposite the illustrated page.  There are single panels and other pages cluttered with details.  In one introduction, she explains her fear of rabies originating in children’s literature.  She writes, “On an ideal planet, children’s books wouldn’t be censored for references to sex, but … Continue reading What I Hate: from A to Z, by Roz Chast

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Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow, by Ted Hughes

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Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives chronicled a literary movement named “the Visceral Realists.”  Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow by Ted Hughes offers the reader a kind of visceral realism.  The poetry cycle recounts the life and times of Crow, a folkloric character, comedian and trickster.  The collection ranges across various types of poems: fairy tales, lullabies, legends, comedic shtick, and parody.  Like the crows one sees everyday, Crow scrabbles in waste, carrion, and garbage.  He is a scavenger, appropriating things, a collector of junk.  The poem titles bear this out, “Oedipus Crow,” “Crow Tyrannosaurus,” and … Continue reading Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow, by Ted Hughes

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The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl, by Marc Schuster

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Audrey Corcoran is unhappy, affected by the vague nameless malaise that creeps into those with thwarted ambitions and unrealized desires.  Audrey works at Eating Out, a “shopper magazine” one usually sees in grocery stores and restaurants.  In this case, the “magazine” – really a glorified press release and advertising delivery device – caters to the businesses on the Golden Mile, a strip of middlebrow chains and franchises.  The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl chronicles Audrey’s alienation and annoyance at the petty power games and trivialities in her comfortable middle class existence. Living with her two children, the … Continue reading The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl, by Marc Schuster

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