Last month, Alex Heard wrote an article in the New Republic (read it here; registration is required) in which he takes David Sedaris to task for leavening his writing with untruths. Various book world figures have weighed in, mostly in defense of Sedaris. Now Jack Schafer has posted his summation of the affair at Slate.com. … Continue reading Naked Truth

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. Obituaries and tributes are legion, but I want to point out this brief passage from an unnamed writer at Shelf Awareness, a bookseller industry newsletter: "In our house, Vonnegut remains a legend for once inspiring our engineer brother, who has rarely read fiction unless it was assigned to him by a … Continue reading Kurt Vonnegut Remembered

Question: Who wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus? Answer: According to John Lauritsen, in his forthcoming book The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein (to be published May 1), the answer is Percy Bysse Shelley. Oh. Even before its publication, the book is generating a lot of verbage. Camille Paglia uses the book as a stick with … Continue reading Monstrous