I just found out that Neil Gaiman’s riveting novel The Graveyard Book has been awarded the Newbery Medal. Well deserved! I bought my copy in Scotland and read it at Dalkeith House in one gigantic gulp. My UK edition features lovely and delicate drawings by Chris Riddell, while the US editions have darker, more atmospheric […]
Category Archives: Reading
Under Three Suns
One of my favorite works of alternate history is Ursula Le Guin’s short story “Sur,” in which a woman reminisces about taking a secret expedition with her girlfriends to discover the South Pole. On a day like today, when the temperature in Wisconsin is -28F and the wind chills are approaching -50F, I find myself […]
The Dream Hunters
I’ve been reading Neil Gaiman’s story The Dream Hunters, both the novella illustrated in 2000 by Yoshitaka Amano and the new graphic novel by Gaiman’s frequent collaborator P. Craig Russell. Both are lovely. The Amano version features 60 beautiful full-page illustrations, illuminating Gaiman’s spare and elegant prose. P. Craig Russell’s version of the fairy tale […]
Poetry Fix: Robin Robertson
Since it’s been snowing back home in Wisconsin, here’s a Robin Robertson poem about snow. It comes from “Swithering,” the Scottish poet’s recent collection. The Park Drunk He opens his eyes to a hard frost, the morning’s soft amnesia of snow. The thorned stems of gorse are starred crystal; each bud like a candied fruit, […]
Poetry Fix: Hugh MacDiarmid
The shifting voice, along with MacDiarmid’s use of “Lallans” Scots, makes this a magical and moving poem. “The Bonnie Broukit Bairn” Mars is braw in crammasy, Venus in a green silk goun, The auld mune shaks her gowden feathers, Their starry talk’s a wheen o blethers, Nane for thee a thochtie sparin’ Earth, thou bonnie […]
Sharp Teeth
I teach Beowulf and Paradise Lost almost every year, something I wouldn’t do if I didn’t have a thing for epic poetry. From time to time, I’ve wondered why nobody writes epic poems anymore. You know—sprawling, thrilling narrative poems that ordinary people actually want to read. Somebody had to bring the epic back, and with […]
Poetry Fix: W.H. Auden
I teach this poem every spring. I love how clearly Auden sees the loneliness that’s inherent in human suffering: so much of the world’s pain takes place “in a corner, some untidy spot,” while the rest of humanity is too busy to take notice. “Musée des Beaux Arts” About suffering they were never wrong, The […]
Steampunk
This week, Tachyon Publications released Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s great new anthology of all things steampunk, which has a wealth of Victorian gadgets and devices, as well as fine stories by Jay Lake, Paul Filippo, and Ian R. MacLeod. The editors’ introductions are relatively concise, obviously meant to be descriptive rather than scholarly. For the […]