I’ve been a fan of Nikolai Grozni since reading his Wunderkind, a novelization of (his?) life at his native Sofia Music Academy. You can still see his own performances as a wunderkind pianist from those early Bulgarian days. Each chapter of Wunderkind is titled by various works of Chopin, et alia, and there exists no …
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 …
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 …
I very rarely stray into horror much anymore, except in the masterful hands of a Stephen Graham Jones, Joe R. Lansdale, Laird Barron, Lucius Shepard, Thomas Ligotti, Richard Laymon. So when I saw this title posted atop a Scariest 100 Horror Novels of All Time list at #1, I figured I should pay attention, particularly …
Highly recommended by readers (and writers) I trust, I was blessedly led to this most unique and memorable book by M. T. Anderson, much of which is the journal of the eponymous son of an African princess, raised and educated at a pre-Revolution center for philosophical inquiry in Boston, the Novanglian College of Lucidity. Octavian …
Imagine going through life as a self-considered devotee of the cinema, with favorite directors (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Scorsese, Coen Brothers, Tarantino, to name a few) occupying a place of worship in my heart. Imagine, then, a sudden discovery of a whole body of work, an auteur, who becomes your sole cinematic obsession. I’d heard of Bob …