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"The mind is its own place, and can create a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven." - John MiltonSeptember 13, 2012 in Books | Permalink
About Me
Reading
- Knut Hamsun: Tales of Love & Loss [BIO]
Listening
- Ted Leo: "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" [BIO]
Writing
- Wheatyard
(Kuboa Press) - "Prague, Oklahoma"
(Daddy Cool: An Anthology of Writing by Fathers For & About Kids) - "Pursuit"
(Skive) - "Mahalia"
(Midwestern Gothic) - "Tangled in Wishes"
(Journal of Microliterature) - "The Last Final Copy"
(On the Clock: Contemporary Short Stories of Work) - "Conned and Bruised"
(A Twist of Noir) - "One Son Resists"
(Green Lantern Press) - "Clean and Bright"
(Joyland) - "Button"
(Shoots and Vines) - "Alleys Are the Footnotes of the Avenues"
(Shoots and Vines) - "Moonlight"
(decomP) - "Quit These Hills"
(Big Pulp) - "Mercy Day"
(RAGAD) - "Deep in the Northwoods"
(Wheelhouse Magazine) - "Howard Holds Court"
(Birmingham Arts Journal) - "Waiting On a Train"
(RAGAD) - "Power"
(The Clarity of Night) - "Guaranteed"
(Spillway Review) - "Big Question"
(Boston Literary Magazine) - "This Time"
(55 Words) - "Immortality"
(THE2NDHAND) - "Freewheeling"
(Dogmatika) - "The Fixer"
(Gapers Block) - "Ralph's Last Call"
(The Angler) - "Can't Be Happy Today, But Tomorrow"
(Skive Magazine) - "Mighty Casey"
(Zisk) - "Ectoplasm"
(Storyglossia) - "Captions Without Photos"
(Gapers Block) - "Blown"
(Writer's Resource Center) - "Have A Pleasant Commute On Metra"
(This is Grand) - "The Retreat"
(monochrom) - Published Here:
"The Copper Responds"
"One Evening in St. Paul"
"The Lovely Miss Underwood"
"Insomnis"
"We Do Not Approve"
"The Ghoul's Evening Visit"
Various Microfiction
More Me
- Photo Gallery
- Old Home Page
- Email Me: pete_anderson [at] comcast [dot] net
My Women
Friendly Links
- Brown Bear Software
- Beth Janicek
- Gapers Block
- Bookslut
- Maud Newton
- Return of the Reluctant
- Bookninja
- Books for Breakfast
- Ben Tanzer
- Nick Ostdick
- Richard Grayson
- What To Wear During an Orange Alert?
- Murmurings to the Masses
- bighappyfunhouse.com
- Fading Ad Campaign
Distant Worthies
- Last Plane to Jakarta
- Ben Katchor: Hotel & Farm
- The Onion
- Salon.com
- Center for American Progress
- MoveOn
- Utne
- The Nation
- AlterNet
- TomPaine.com
- NewPages
- Tom Tomorrow - This Modern World
- Ted Rall - Political Cartoon
Web Ring
Archives by Category
- Books
- Chicago Observations
- Current Affairs
- Fiction (my writings)
- Memoir
- Music
- Personal
- Photography
- Zines
Archives by Month
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
Search Site
Recent Reads
- Patrick Michael Finn: From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet
Joliet stories that hit you in the gut, and the heart. -
- Various Writers: Hair Lit Vol. One
Solid, fun, often touching collection of stories about hair metal songs. -
- Marilynne Robinson: Housekeeping
Good but not classic novel burdened by overwritten and digressive prose. -
- Anton Chekhov: The Duel
Priviliged but unhappy people take personal honor to its extreme. -
- Hans Keilson: Comedy in a Minor Key
Subtle but affecting portrait of a marriage, war and human compassion. -
- William Butler Yeats: The Wind Among the Reeds
Early collection of poems from the Irish master. -
- Samuel Beckett: Endgame
Bleak and quietly profound. -
- J.P. Donleavy: The Ginger Man
Loathsome protagonist, meandering narrative, overwritten prose. Mediocre. -
- William Trevor: Cheating at Canasta
Lovely, quiet yet powerful collection of stories about people who are lonely but often not alone. -
- Kurt Vonnegut: Armageddon in Retrospect
Funny, angry, incisive stories and essays about war, peace and humanity. -
- Elizabeth Crane: You Must Be This Happy to Enter
Mediocre collection of overly clever stories. -
- Edward J. Rathke: Ash Cinema
Haunting novel of grief, longing and reaching across time. -
- Margaret Atwood: The Penelopiad
Disappointing retelling of the classic Ulysses and Penelope myth. -
- Jeff Sypeck: Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles
Entertaining, lively collection of traditional poetry. -
- Ben Tanzer: This American Life
Funny collection of monologues and stories. -
- Larry Brown: Joe
Tense, biting story of family and retribution. -
- Mike Royko: Sez Who? Sez Me
Funny, witty, skewering collection of Royko columns from the 1970s and 80s. -
- Knut Hamsun: Victoria
Fine narrative of romantic tensions, slightly undone by a melodramatic and unrealistic ending. -
- Tarjei Vesaas: The Ice Palace
Haunting tale of childhood secrets and learning to grieve, and learning to live on. -
- Jason Fisk: Hank and Jules
Sobering portrait of a failing marriage, marked by frustration, heartbreak and temptation. -
- Kent Haruf: Where You Once Belonged
Prodigal son returns home to a hostile welcome. -
- Sinclair Lewis: Go East, Young Man
Fine stories with all the satirical wit and social commentary you would expect from Lewis. -
- Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim
Wry satire of midcentury British academia. -
- Nick Hornby: Juliet, Naked
Pop music and failed relationships - but still a letdown. -
- Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
Lovely, quiet, dignified portrait of an English butler and a vanishing way of life. -
- Joe Meno: Office Girl
Deceptively light narrative that runs much deeper than it seems. Nicely done. -
- Richard Wright: Native Son
More polemic than novel, contrived narrative in service of the author's grand message. -
- Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Slow, ponderous, verbose, endlessly digressive. Not a classic. -
- Kjersti A. Skomsvold: The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am
Uneven debut novel of a lonely, lost old woman. -
- Matthew LeMay: XO
Good, but not completely convincing study of Elliott Smith's great album. -
- Ryan W. Bradley: Prize Winners
Crisp, quick and obsessed with sex. -
- James Joyce: The Dead
Excellent, atmospheric story of long-ago Dublin life. -
- Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
Chaotic, propulsive, contemplative, visceral, devastating. Brilliant. -
- Michael Czyzniejewski: Chicago Stories; 40 Dramatic Fictions
Funny, imaginative, thoughtful monologues from Chicago's famous and infamous. -
- Tom Williams: The Mimic's Own Voice
Brilliant fictional biography of an artistic genius. -
- Ben Tanzer: My Father's House
Emotionally moving story of coping with grief before loss has even occurred. -
- William Trevor: Felicia's Journey
Lovely novel of loneliness, longing and regret, and two vivid characters whose lives briefly cross, with only one emerging unscathed. -
- Various Writers: Great Tales of City Dwellers
Strong 1955 short story anthology - Algren, McCullers, Wolfe... -
- Jane Addams: Twenty Years at Hull-House
Memoir of the first twenty years of the pioneering Chicago settlement house, by the great social reformer. -
- David A. Taylor: Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America
Great subject matter, less than great presentation. -
- Peter Orner: Esther Stories
Solid story collection of lonely lives. -
- Jim Thompson: Savage Night
A hitman's compelling tale and surreal fate. -
- Ben Katchor: The Cardboard Valise
Weird and wonderful graphic novel from the best one going. -
- Aharon Appelfeld: The Iron Tracks
Grim, joyless yet quietly powerful story of memory and revenge. -
- Sholom Aleichem: Selected Stories
Delightful tales of Eastern European Jews of a now-distant yet vivid past. -
- Isaac Bashevis Singer and Richard Burgin: Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer
Stimulating discussions on literature and humanity. -
- Bohumil Hrabal: Too Loud a Solitude
Thoughtful, philosophical, funny and tragic novel about the power of the written word. Stunning. -
- Alan Heathcock: Volt
Strong, sometimes brutally real collection of short stories set in small-town America. -
- Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Love versus marriage, happiness versus obligation, scholarship versus real life. -
- Jason Fisk: Salt Creek Anthology
Suburban story cycle of mostly empty lives. -
- Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
Fine but overlong story of ambition, resignation and redemption. -
- Ben Tanzer: You Can Make Him Like You
Funny, thoughtful novel of looming fatherhood. -
- Per Petterson: Out Stealing Horses
Quietly intense, impeccably narrated, simply beautiful. -
- Nelson Algren: Nonconformity: Writing on Writing
Passionate book-length essay on writing, artistic freedom and championing the downtrodden. -
- Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture
Beautiful prose doesn't quite save the structural and narrative flaws of this otherwise promising novel. -
- Len O'Connor: A Reporter in Sweet Chicago
Interesting memoir of the longtime Chicago journalist. -
- Scott Phillips: Rut
Dysfunction and corruption reign in a forlorn Colorado town. -
- Stona Fitch: Senseless
Tense, disturbing thriller of political extremism and one man's fight for survival. -
- Sinclair Lewis: Elmer Gantry
Entertaining satire of religious ambition and hypocrisy - but more of a polemic than a novel. -
- Austin Kleon: Newspaper Blackout
Innovative, fun collection of found poetry, all created by blacking out newspaper articles. -
- Jamie Iredell: Prose. Poems. A Novel
Lyrical portrait of a dissolute life, glimmering slightly at the conclusion. -
- Corey Mesler: The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores
Lust, murder and dark hilarity consume a fictional Arkansas town. -
- Mel Bosworth: Grease Stains, Kismet and Maternal Wisdom
Boy meets girl, heartbreak unexpectedly does not prevail. -
- George Ade: In Babel: Stories of Chicago
Wonderful collection of short stories, originally published as newspaper columns. -
- Ring Lardner: The Portable Ring Lardner
Terrific collection of novellas, short stories and satirical essays. -
- Finley Peter Dunne: Mr. Dooley Remembers
Fine collection of the final essays of the great humorist, along with twelve classic Mr. Dooley columns. -
- Andrew Ervin: Extraordinary Renditions
Strong, sharply-written debut about three intersecting lives in Budapest. -
- Studs Terkel: Working
Lively, compelling, indispensible oral history of Americans talking about their jobs. -
- O.E. Rölvaag: Giants in the Earth
Magnificent epic of South Dakota pioneers. -
- Seamus Heaney (translator): Beowulf
Modern, flowing verse interpretation of the great epic poem. -
- Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Whitman's love song to America, best enjoyed in small doses. -
- Stendhal: The Red and the Black
Long, plodding disappointment. -
- Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Good but less than essential novel of African tribal life, tradition versus modernity. -
- READINGS 2001-11
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Member since 07/2003
