Mark Z. Danielewski ~ The Familiar, Volume I: One Rainy Day in May

Privileged to have read the bound galleys of this, Mark Z. Danielewski ‘s magnum opus (eventually to be comprised of 27 volumes), The Familiar, to be published by Pantheon in May of next year, Volume II soon to follow in the Fall of 2015 (I’ve read drafts of the first 5 or 6 volumes, over …

Read more

J.S. Bach ~ Allemande and Sarabande from the e minor Partita

From the Top recently taped two episodes at UConn/Storrs and the sumptuous Peace Center in Greenville, SC. I’ve been having the most cleansing and enlightening time these days working on the 6th Partita (especially after reading John Eliot Gardiner’s recent biography, Music in the Castle of Heaven set to the accompaniment of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s complete …

Read more

Chuck Palahniuk ~ Beautiful You

Chuck Palahniuk is another writer whose complete work I’ve obsessively read ever since happening upon his pre-Saw-series book of guilt, damnation and retribution, Haunted. His grasp and horror at contemporary mores and pop culture-as-cancer at its most Rabelaisian/Swiftian coupled with an addictive prose style reminiscent of the sublimely slaking effervescence of Dickens or Rushdie make …

Read more

Share →
Send this to a friend