Tag: reading

  • More From Our Monsters?

    More From Our Monsters?

    I was more intrigued by Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023) at its beginning than I was by its end. This book is presented as an audience memoir by its author. In it, Dederer considers the question of art created by artists who have behaved badly. She considers a range of different artists,…

  • A Need to Read?

    A Need to Read?

    Gloria Edim’s (2024) new memoir is a project in search of a problem. The book is a series of thematic chapters loosely organized in chronological order. These offer clusters of experiences, and the ways that reading helped her think through and about these. Edim’s claim to fame is the the Well-Read Black Girl organization, which…

  • Book Clubbing

    Book Clubbing

    I almost left when the moderator told a newcomer who announced at the outset that she hadn’t actually read the book that doing so isn’t a participation prerequisite. This group had been assigned Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, by Jamie Loftus (2023). Its publisher insists that it’s a travelogue-culinary history-capitalist critique combo.…