January 2011
22 posts
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Tom Rachman: The Imperfectionists
This highly praised novel by Tom Rachman was, for me, a miss. The pace was brisk to the point of rushed, with characters introduced then colored in all too quickly. James Woods’ “hysterical realism” knock came to mind as well, with some of Rachman’s characters shouldering one more eccentricity than necessary (the dreadlocked Irish juggler comes to mind).
This was the...
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“After our success with the Jets, we were able to land the National Hockey League...”
– Gary Vaynerchuk, in Inc’s “The Way I Work” series. I think that’s a pretty good example of how social media can work. It’s a way of caring, in small ways that matter.
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C.D. Wright: One With Others
A surprise Christmas gift from my wife, C.D. Wright’s One With Others was wonderful — moving, lyrical, unclassifiable. Here’s the description from the publisher:
Investigative journalism is the poet’s realm when C.D. Wright returns to her native Arkansas and examines an explosive incident from the civil rights movement. Wright interweaves oral histories, hymns, lists,...
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Anthony Tommasini: "The Greatest Composers" →
The NYT critic completes his two-week project of picking his top 10 classical music composers. Terrific series. Don’t miss the videos.
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n+1: "Revolt of the Elites" →
I really enjoyed this excerpt from the new issue of n+1. Smart, opinionated, and entertaining.
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“Two-spacers are everywhere, their ugly error crossing every social boundary of...”
– Farhad Manjoo, in Slate: “Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period”
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Client Project: Relaunching Eastmanimages.com
Michael Eastman is an internationally collected photographer who lives in St. Louis, my hometown. I knew his work before meeting him, as he’d been a collaborator on several projects with the writer William H. Gass, his friend and neighbor and an author I pay an inordinate amount of attention to. It was actually at a Gass event in 2007 — the writer was receiving Saint Louis University...
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“Presently there’s a clear rift in iPad editorial design. There are those...”
– From “A Simpler Page,” another insightful, pathfinding article from Craig Mod. (His breakdown of tablet reading distances—”Bed, Knee, and Breakfast”—is particularly interesting.)
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“I like the fact that Monocle pays only lip service to relevance. They know as...”
– From “An ode to cosmopolitanism by proxy, sort of,” a well-put post from Daily Meh
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“5. B flat: A full step below C, but nevertheless its near equal. A resounding...”
– From Classical Life’s “Top Ten Greatest Notes of All Time”
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“When it arrived the web seemed to fill all of those niches at once. The web was...”
– From Paul Ford’s “The Web Is a Customer Service Medium,” a really good read. (Ford talked through this point on The Big Web Show back in October.)
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“‘I like when the music blasts as soon as the site loads. It signals to...”
– Great idea for a new Tumbelog: “Never said about restaurant websites”
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My Favorites for 2010
So at the end of just about every year since 2000, I’ve rounded up my favorite (mainly cultural) stuff of the previous 12 months and posted it online. Here are my picks for 2010, which I’ll soon be adding to my permanent Annual Favorites page:
Books (Any Year)
Stoner, by John Williams
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, by David Remnick
Although Of Course You End Up...
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