Where has all the funny gone? If reading is escapism, then I have to confess that, in the last few months, what I’m really looking for in my literature is something a little offbeat, a little surreal, and definitely funny. I don’t need more tragedy or pathos or–no, seriously–yet another novel about missing kids or …
Reading is a solitary practice, yet it is also a strangely social practice. Writers write to be read, and we read to enjoy the opportunity to explore other spaces and other identities. And the fundamental nature of the book hasn’t changed much since we started slapping together piles of papyrus or kicking a scroll open …
Every leap year, Neil Gaiman’s clever note about taking writers out to dinner on February 29th circulates, and every leap year, writers rejoice. And a few of them actually get a decent meal, too. But what about booksellers? Extra Leap Year Day is already taken, and it’s sorta awkward if we try to muscle in …
Sometimes, when you go to light a firework, the fuse sparks up and disappears into the tube, and then you wait . . . and wait . . . and wait, and just when you think you’ve got a dud, a tiny thread of smoke drifts out of the top. Everyone starts to find an …
