Eileen Daly-Boas

Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks

I mentioned I like short stories. So, reading Cloudsplitter, (all 772 pages of historical fiction) is predictably, a bit much for me. It’s a great novel whose narrator is Owen Brown, a son of John Brown the abolitionist. I mostly picked it up hefted it because they lived in North Elba, NY for a while.Continue reading “Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks”

The situation in Pakistan

John Green, author of An Abundance of Katherines, an excellent young-adult novel, posted this in the vlog (video blog) he hosts with his brother, Hank Green. You can see their year-long odyssey of communicating only through videos here: brotherhood2.com. This post came about when he was asked to explain the situation in Pakistan – whichContinue reading “The situation in Pakistan”

What I like: short stories

While I’ve been known to slog through long Russian novels, my favorite kind of reading lately has been short stories, or anthologies of essays. Perhaps my attention span is waning, but I think it’s because I am in awe of how an author can create a universe from nothing in only a few pages. AmyContinue reading “What I like: short stories”

Philosophy and the good life

Lately, “the good life” is all the rage in philosophical circles. Which isn’t a surprise – it’s a subject that most decent philosophers have dealt with. But why so many new books and why now? The challenge is to differentiate the wheat from the chaff. Joel K. Kupperman has been writing interesting books such as,Continue reading “Philosophy and the good life”